What is a product transfer?
When the mortgage deal that you initially obtained as a new customer comes to an end, your mortgage lender may offer you a new deal to help persuade you to stay with them for longer, this is known as a product transfer.
Are you rewarded for being loyal?
Lenders do not loyalty as a means of giving people rewards. The offer they make for you may not be competitive with deals you could get elsewhere regardless of your situation. Even more annoyingly, these product transfer rates are not as good as the deal they are offering to their new First Time Buyer in Derby customers.
Tempted by an online switch?
Whilst swapping to a new deal with your current lender may well be fairly easy online, it is always in your interest to see what other deals you may be eligible for. Lenders will also tempt you to effect a new deal online without taking advice.
This can be really dangerous because if you do this without advice you are waving goodbye to all the valuable consumer protection you would otherwise have benefitted from.
You’ll be opting out of mortgage advice
We have seen numerous examples of customers affecting these “follow-on” deals and locking themselves into an inappropriate deal. Because they opted out of advice then they have waived a lot of their rights in terms of making a complaint.
We have had a case where a customer who was pregnant did this and was declined for a small further advance to fund some necessary home improvements a few months later. She then had to pay a hefty early repayment charge to swap to a new lender who would grant her the additional funds.
Always get mortgage advice
If we think a product transfer is the most suitable deal for you we will recommend that as a course of action for you and if we arrange the mortgage for you as a Mortgage Broker in Derby then all the regulation and consumer protection will apply.
In short, even if your requirement seems straightforward we recommend you always take advice – a second opinion costs nothing and making a mistake when taking a new product can be costly.
The Remortgage market in Derby is highly competitive and savings can generally be made by searching the market for a new deal.
Date Last Edited: December 6, 2023
