Ask the experts

About our experts...

At John Charcol, we are constantly asked for advice by borrowers on what they should do when it comes to mortgages.  As such, we created this section so that you can submit your questions to our experts.  The answers are provided by a number of people who have years of experience in the mortgage market.  The team is led by Peter Woodward who works in our technical department.  Peter spent his formative years as an underwriter with one of the major UK lenders so what he doesn't know, quite frankly, isn't worth knowing...

So please do submit your question and we will do all we can to answer it as quickly as possible

Please be aware that these answers can only be generic and no personal recommendations can be made.


Posted on 13 July 2009

My partner and i are looking for a good mortgage deal and have been speaking with an independent broker. so we are clear that we are not being pushed into a deal that is unsuitable will the broker have to inform us of the...

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Category: The application process explained


Posted on 2 May 2008

We have our house on the market and are looking to move into a bigger house which of course will costs us more money. What do we need to do in terms of our mortgage. We are with Alliance & Leicester and our current deal runs out...

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Category: The application process explained


Posted on 25 February 2008

Hi Katie, I currently have a mortgage on my residential home. I am looking at buying a second property with a friend of mine to refurbish and sell on. There are a couple of things I am not sure of, the first being, can I secure a...

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Category: The application process explained


Posted on 18 January 2008

I currently own a home worth £171K and have a mortgage of £60K left to pay off. I am looking to buy another property on a buy to let. My Salary is 38K but I would need to borrow £170K to buy the house. All the mortgage...

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Category: Buy-to-let, The application process explained


Posted on 19 December 2007

Hi, Is there anyway you can work out for me what the interest would be on £103,000 mortgage? Sally

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Category: First-time buyer, The application process explained


Posted on 17 December 2007

Hi Katie, I have a mortgage of £50,000 I need to borrow £25,000 more. How much would a £75,000 mortgage cost me?

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Category: The application process explained


Posted on 16 December 2007

Hi Katie, I heard there are 8500 mortgage products out there. How different can they really be? - grateful for your insight. Thanks, Clive.

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Category: First-time buyer, The application process explained


Posted on 8 November 2007

Hi katie, I would like to buy a pub, but don't know the best way to go around it. The tenant at the moment would like £25,000 and there is 7 years left on the lease. I live in private rented accommodation,and my credit rating is...

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Category: Bad credit, First-time buyer, The application process explained


Posted on 5 October 2007

My partner and i want to buy soon. We are first time buyers. My salary is £14000 and his is £16500. we are both set to have pay rises of approx £1500 each by July 2007. we have seen a property we are very interested in but are...

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Category: First-time buyer, The application process explained


Posted on 1 October 2007

Please can you give me some info on Mortgages for the Self Employed, my husband has recently set up his own business, 9 months ago and we currently have a mortgage that was secured with his previous job, if we were to move in the...

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Category: Self-certification, The application process explained


Posted on 16 September 2007

I really need your impartial advice, First National Home Finance via Pink Home Lenders have agreed to provide me 3 year fixed rate mortgage @ 6.14% (re-mortgage). I believe when I initially applied the rate was only 5.5% and in...

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Category: Fixed or Variable?, The application process explained


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