Remortgaging in 2026
If your fixed rate is running out, the decision in front of you is bigger than a rate comparison. Here is where the remortgage market actually stands in 2026, what doing nothing costs, and how to weigh a product transfer against a move to a new lender.
- Current rates and what a fix really costs against an SVR
- Product transfer or full remortgage, compared honestly
- What the FCA switching rules changed for existing borrowers
- Whole-of-market advice from a broker in Eltham
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Remortgaging in 2026
The refinancing market is busy again. Bank of England figures for June 2026 show 34,200 approvals for remortgaging to a different lender, up from 33,800 in May. Net mortgage borrowing rose sharply to £7.7bn in June, against £3.3bn the month before. After a subdued start to the year, borrowers are moving — and the great majority of them are people whose fixed rate is ending rather than people buying a home.
The uncomfortable detail sits in the effective rate data. The average rate on newly drawn mortgages was 4.35% in June 2026, while the average rate across the outstanding stock of mortgages was 3.96%. In plain terms, the typical borrower reaching the end of a deal is still rolling onto a higher rate than the one they are leaving. That gap has narrowed from its peak, but it has not closed, and it is the single most important number to budget around.
UK Finance expects £77bn of external remortgaging across 2026, an increase of around 10% on the previous year, within gross lending of roughly £300bn. Switching to a new lender is therefore growing faster than the mortgage market as a whole. That tells you something useful: enough borrowers are finding a full remortgage worth the effort that the external market is outpacing overall lending.
None of this makes switching automatic. It does mean the decision is being taken by more people, more often, and with more at stake than in the cheap-money years. The rest of this guide covers what actually drives the outcome — the cost of inaction, the choice between staying and moving, the shape of the deal, and the practical timing.
The Cost of Doing Nothing
Do nothing when a fixed rate ends and the mortgage reverts to the lender’s standard variable rate. That is reliably the most expensive outcome available. The average SVR stood at 7.13% on 1 August 2026, against an average two-year fix of 5.62% and an average five-year fix of 5.61%. The sharpest deals on the market were lower again, at around 4.32% over two years and 4.46% over five.
A worked example makes the gap concrete. Take a £200,000 repayment mortgage with 20 years left to run. At 7.13% the monthly payment is roughly £1,566. At the average two-year fixed rate of 5.62% it is about £1,389. At a competitive 4.32% it falls to around £1,246 — a difference of roughly £320 a month, or close to £3,840 over a year, against the standard variable rate. These figures are illustrative and rounded, and your own will depend on balance, term and loan to value.
Best buy rates are not available to everyone. They generally assume a healthy equity stake, clean credit and straightforward income, and they often carry an arrangement fee that has to be set against the saving. A fee of around £999 on a £200,000 loan is worth paying for a meaningful rate reduction and not worth paying for a marginal one. The comparison that matters is true cost over the fixed period, not the headline rate on its own.
The real trap is drift. A standard variable rate is not a penalty period with a lock on it; you can leave at any time without an early repayment charge, which is precisely why people put the job off. Every month spent there, though, is money that does not come back. If your deal ends within the next six months, the cost of doing nothing is the figure to hold in your head.
Product Transfer or Full Remortgage?
The scale of internal switching is widely underestimated. Industry figures for the first quarter of 2026 record 499,830 mortgages refinanced, a 33% increase on the same quarter a year earlier. Of those, 84% were internal product transfers — borrowers taking a new deal from the lender they already had — and only 16% were external remortgages to a different lender.
A product transfer is fast and light. There is usually no valuation, no legal work and, in most cases, no fresh affordability assessment, because the lender is not advancing new money. It can often be arranged in an afternoon. The price of that convenience is that you are choosing from one lender’s range rather than the whole market, and you cannot raise capital or restructure the loan in any meaningful way.
A full remortgage takes longer and involves underwriting, a valuation and conveyancing, although many lenders cover the legal and valuation costs on remortgage products. In exchange you get the whole market, the ability to borrow more, and the freedom to change the term. On a substantial balance, the difference between the best internal offer and the best available deal can be worth several thousand pounds across a fixed period.
Regulation has tilted the balance slightly in favour of moving. The FCA policy statement PS25/11 is now in force. It allows a lender to use a modified affordability assessment where a borrower is switching from another lender to a deal that is more affordable than their current one, and it permits a reduction in mortgage term without a full affordability assessment. The intent is to stop borrowers with a spotless payment record being trapped with their existing lender simply because the rules moved on after they first borrowed.
Read More Before You Switch
A remortgage is often the moment to review everything else too. These pages are the usual next step.
Remortgage Advice
Coming off a fixed rate, raising capital, or moving away from your current lender.
Home Mover Mortgages
Porting, extra borrowing and timing when you are moving to your next home.
Buy to Let Mortgages
Rental cover, stress testing, and personal against company ownership compared.
Insurance and Protection
How life, critical illness, income protection and home cover fit around a mortgage.
Fix, Tracker or Something Else, and For How Long
The Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75% on 30 July 2026, the fifth consecutive hold, on a 6–3 vote in which three members wanted an increase to 4.00%. CPI inflation stood at 2.6% in June, the lowest reading since March 2025. The next decision is due on 17 September 2026. On the surface that looks like a settled picture, and on the surface is exactly where it stops being helpful.
The direction of travel matters more than the level. As at late July 2026, markets were pricing the possibility of rises rather than cuts over the following year, a reversal of the expectations that had prevailed earlier in the cycle. Anyone waiting on the sidelines for rates to come down before committing should be clear that the market was not, at that point, expecting them to.
Fixed rates are not set from the Bank of England’s headline rate. They are priced off swap rates, which reflect what the market expects interest rates to average over the life of the deal. That is why fixed mortgage pricing can move sharply in a month when the base rate has not moved at all, and why a run of hold decisions is no reason to assume nothing is happening. Trackers are different: they follow the Bank of England’s rate directly, so they change only when it does.
Choosing between them is a question of tolerance rather than prediction. A two-year fix keeps you flexible and returns you to the market sooner. A five-year fix buys certainty and removes the cost and effort of repeating this exercise in 2028. A tracker, often with no early repayment charge, suits someone who expects to move, repay a lump sum or simply wait for pricing to settle. There is no universally correct answer, only the one that fits your budget and your plans.
Remortgaging to Do Something, Not Just to Save
A remortgage does not have to be purely defensive. Raising capital against a property you already own is usually the cheapest borrowing available to a homeowner, and with the average UK house price at £271,000 in May 2026, up 2.7% over the year, many owners hold more equity than they assume. Home improvements are the most common reason for doing it: an extension or a loft conversion funded at mortgage rates rather than on unsecured credit.
Consolidating debt is the option that needs the most care. Moving a credit card or personal loan onto the mortgage lowers the monthly outgoing, but it stretches the borrowing over a far longer period and usually costs more in total interest. More seriously, it converts unsecured debt into debt secured against your home, which puts the property at risk if things go wrong. It can still be the right call, but it should be made deliberately, with the total cost written down.
Other reasons have nothing to do with the rate at all. Shortening the term to clear the mortgage sooner, extending it to ease monthly pressure, adding or removing a name after a marriage or a separation, and moving from interest only to repayment before the term ends are all handled at refinance. Each of them changes what a lender will accept, so the earlier the conversation starts, the more options remain open.
Circumstances change more often than people expect. If you have become self-employed since you last borrowed, been through a period of adverse credit, or are now approaching retirement with pension income to evidence, your existing lender’s website is unlikely to give you a good answer. That is where an independent mortgage broker earns their place, knowing which lenders read those situations sympathetically. The same applies to buy to let refinancing, which runs on entirely different rules and is covered in our other mortgage guides.
Timing and Preparation
Most lenders will let you reserve a new rate up to six months before your current deal ends. There is normally no obligation to go ahead, so if pricing improves in the meantime you can usually switch to the better offer before completion. That makes an early application close to a free option, and it is the most useful piece of timing advice for anyone whose fix is running down.
Start six months out. That leaves room to compare a product transfer against the open market, to run a full application without pressure, and to absorb a valuation query or a slow legal process without landing on the standard variable rate by accident. Leaving it to the final month narrows the field to whatever can complete quickly, which is rarely the same thing as whatever is cheapest.
Preparation is straightforward. You will need identification and proof of address, three months of bank statements, three months of payslips or two to three years of accounts and SA302s if you work for yourself, your current mortgage statement and redemption figure, and details of any other credit commitments. Check your credit file early, because a forgotten default or an out-of-date address is far easier to correct in month six than in week one. It is also worth forming a view of what you can afford before you apply rather than after.
Finally, know your loan to value. Dropping into a lower band, below 75% or below 60%, can move you to a materially better rate, and after several years of capital repayment and modest house price growth many borrowers sit in a better band than they realise. If you are close to a threshold, a modest overpayment before you apply can pay for itself many times over across the fixed period.
We are based in Eltham and advise clients across South East London and Kent, including Lewisham, Bromley and Sidcup. We are not limited to those areas: we work with clients right across the UK, including London, Essex, Surrey, Sussex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and most cases are handled by phone and video, so where you live is rarely a barrier. You can also read our remortgage advice.
Have These Ready
How We Handle Your Remortgage
A remortgage rewards preparation more than almost any other mortgage transaction, because you control the timing. We start early, so the decision is made on merit rather than on whatever can complete before your deal expires.
Start Six Months Out
We diarise your deal expiry and open the conversation well before it, while every option is still genuinely available.
Review Your Position
We check the balance, term, current rate, loan to value and anything that has changed in your income or credit since you last borrowed.
Weigh The Options
We put your lender’s product transfer offer alongside the wider market and compare them on true cost, not on headline rates.
Shape The Deal
We agree the rate type, the length of the fix and any change to the term or the amount you are borrowing before anything is submitted.
Submit And Secure
We package the application and hold the rate, then move you to a better one if pricing improves before completion.
Keep In Touch
We stay in contact through the legal work and come back to you ahead of the next maturity, so this never becomes urgent.
Is Your Fixed Rate Ending?
Tell us when your deal ends and roughly what you owe. We will come back with your options and whether it is worth moving to a new lender.
Read our mortgage guide, view our frequently asked questions, or explore remortgage advice.
Remortgaging: Frequently Asked Questions
When should I start looking at a remortgage?
Six months before your current deal ends. Most lenders allow you to reserve a rate up to six months ahead, and there is normally no obligation to proceed, so if better pricing appears before completion you can usually switch to it. Starting early gives you time to compare your existing lender’s product transfer offer against the whole market, to deal with a valuation query or a slow conveyancer, and to correct anything unexpected on your credit file. Leaving it to the last few weeks limits you to whatever can complete quickly, which is rarely the cheapest option available.
What is the difference between a product transfer and a remortgage?
A product transfer is a new deal from your existing lender on the same loan. There is usually no valuation, no legal work and no fresh affordability assessment, so it is quick, but you are limited to one lender’s range and you cannot borrow more or restructure the loan. A full remortgage moves the mortgage to a different lender, with underwriting, a valuation and conveyancing involved, although many remortgage products include free legals and valuation. In the first quarter of 2026, 84% of the 499,830 mortgages refinanced were internal product transfers and 16% were external remortgages.
Will I have to pass affordability checks again if I switch lender?
Usually yes, but the rules have eased. The FCA policy statement PS25/11 is now in force and allows a lender to apply a modified affordability assessment where a borrower is moving from another lender to a deal that is more affordable than their current one. It also permits a reduction in mortgage term without a full affordability assessment. The aim was to stop borrowers with a clean payment history being stuck with their existing lender purely because lending rules had tightened since they first took the loan. A product transfer with your current lender generally involves no affordability assessment at all.
Is it still worth remortgaging if my rate is going up either way?
Almost always. In June 2026 the average rate on newly drawn mortgages was 4.35% against 3.96% on the outstanding stock, so most borrowers coming off a deal are moving to something higher. That is not an argument for doing nothing, because the alternative is the standard variable rate, which averaged 7.13% on 1 August 2026 against average fixes of around 5.62% over two years and 5.61% over five. The question is not whether your payment rises but by how much, and reverting to an SVR maximises the increase rather than limiting it.
Should I fix for two years or five years in 2026?
It depends on how much certainty you want and what you expect to do with the property. A two-year fix returns you to the market sooner and suits anyone who thinks pricing will improve or whose circumstances may change. A five-year fix locks in a known payment and saves you repeating the process in 2028. Context matters here: the Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75% on 30 July 2026 on a 6–3 vote, with three members voting for a rise to 4.00%, and markets in late July were pricing possible increases rather than cuts. That makes longer certainty more valuable than it was.
Why do fixed rates change when the Bank of England holds Bank Rate?
Because fixed mortgage rates are not priced from Bank Rate. Lenders price them off swap rates, which represent what financial markets expect interest rates to average over the length of the deal. If expectations for the next two or five years shift, swap rates move and fixed mortgage pricing follows, regardless of what the Bank of England did at its most recent meeting. Tracker rates work the other way round, following Bank Rate directly and changing only when it changes. This is why a run of hold decisions tells you very little about where fixed rates are heading.
Can I borrow more money when I remortgage?
Yes, provided the equity and the affordability support it. Capital raising on a remortgage is usually the cheapest borrowing available to a homeowner, and the average UK house price reached £271,000 in May 2026, so many owners have more equity than they expect. Common uses are home improvements, funding a deposit elsewhere or settling other commitments. Consolidating unsecured debt deserves particular caution: it lowers the monthly payment but spreads the debt over a longer period, usually costs more overall, and secures against your home borrowing that previously was not.
Can I remortgage if I am self-employed or have had credit problems?
In most cases yes, though the route matters. Lenders differ widely in how they treat self-employed income, a past default or a county court judgment, and how they view income in the years before retirement. Your existing lender’s online product transfer will not consider any of it, which can be an advantage if you simply want a new rate on the same loan. If you need to move lender or borrow more, whole-of-market advice is worth having, because the difference between a sympathetic lender and an unsympathetic one is often the difference between an offer and a decline.
Have a different question? Get in touch or read our full mortgage FAQs.