The calculators
Five working tools — what you could borrow, monthly repayments, stamp duty across all three countries, overpayments, and the buy-to-let rental stress test.
Open the calculators
The guides
How it all actually works
Twelve guides, written the way we would explain it across a table. No sales pitch in any of them, and nothing you have to give us an email address to read.
Twelve guides
Written by advisers, not by a marketing departmentGUIDE 01
What a lender actually looks at
Four things decide it, and only one of them is your salary. Worth knowing before you are turned down for something you could have fixed.
2 minute read GUIDE 02The paperwork to have ready before you apply
A list you can work through in an evening. Having it complete is the single biggest thing that speeds a case up.
2 minute read GUIDE 03How a mortgage runs, week by week
From the first conversation to the keys. What happens, who is doing it, and where the time actually goes.
3 minute read GUIDE 04Fixed, tracker or variable
Not a question of which is cheaper. A question of what you are buying, and what the exit costs.
2 minute read GUIDE 05Your fixed rate is ending
Do nothing and the lender moves you to its standard variable rate. Here is the timetable and the three options.
2 minute read GUIDE 06Stamp duty in England, Wales and Scotland
Three different taxes with three different names, three sets of bands and two different views on first-time buyers.
2 minute read GUIDE 07Buying with someone else
Joint tenants or tenants in common is not a formality. It decides what happens to your share.
2 minute read GUIDE 08Self-employed: what a lender counts as income
Not turnover. Often not what you think of as your income either. The differences between lenders here are the widest in the market.
2 minute read GUIDE 09Your credit file, before you apply
What a lender sees, what it does not, and the handful of things worth fixing three months before you apply.
2 minute read GUIDE 10Deposits, gifts and where the money came from
The paperwork behind the money. This is what stalls cases at the last minute, and it is entirely avoidable.
2 minute read GUIDE 11What actually happens when you claim
The part nobody reads until they need it. Who you ring, what they ask for, and why claims get declined.
2 minute read GUIDE 12Buy to let: why the numbers work differently
The rent has to carry the loan, and it has to carry it at a rate you are not paying. Here is how that calculation works.
2 minute readTwo more things worth having
Both free, both on this siteThe glossary
Every word a lender, solicitor or insurer will use, explained in a sentence. Searchable, so you can check a term in the middle of reading an email from somebody else.
Open the glossaryOur guides are general information about how mortgages, protection and the process around them work. They are not advice and they do not take account of anybody’s particular circumstances. Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may change. Thresholds quoted were checked against GOV.UK, GOV.WALES and Revenue Scotland on 13 September 2026 and change at Budgets — your solicitor confirms the figure that actually applies to your purchase.
A guide cannot ask you a question.
That is the whole limitation of writing anything down. If your situation has an “except” in it — and most do — ring us and we will work through the actual case.
Where to next
Chosen for this pageREFERENCE
The A–Z glossary
Every word a lender, solicitor or insurer will use, explained in a sentence.
Read this next CALCULATORThe calculators
Five working tools: borrowing, repayments, stamp duty, overpayments, rental stress.
Read this next QUESTIONSThe questions people ask
The same ground, in question-and-answer form rather than as guides.
Read this nextSwipe across to move between pages