If you are looking to raise money for debt consolidation, home  improvements, a new car.

Courtesy of the government scrap page scheme, or even to send your children to a private school, you may find it more difficult to simply pull money out of your home, as was done so much in 2006 and 2007.

While 2 years ago you could get a very keen competitive remortgage deal at 85 percent loan to value, now banks are valuing homes much more carefully and only offering 75% loan to value – and this is with a low risk prime borrower, with no poor credit rating or extensive existing debts.  Borrowing when you have arrears on your current mortgage can be very difficult as lenders do not like doing it.  If you have equity in your home you can get bridging finance and keep that for 6 months and then remortgage as then your arrears will be more in your past.

If you are looking for a no credit check refinance, as you have a lot of bad credit history, lenders will be far more cautious. You will discover mortgages with much lower loan to values, higher fees, and a much stricter requirement for P60’s, wage slips, bank statements or for the self employed, accounts from an accountant.

The self cert deals on refinancing that used to be so popular are now very rare and expensive. If you want to raise money a secured loan used to be a good option, but the secured loan business has all but disappeared. Also the drawback with a secured loan is they are always on a repayment basis, but with a mortgage (1st charge borrowing) you can have the whole amount interest only.