When you remortgage your property you will take out a new mortgage to pay off the one you already have. This is different to a standard mortgage as you won’t be moving house.

You may want to remortgage your property because other mortgage lenders are offering better deals. They might give you a better rate of interest, allow you to over pay or under pay or offer cash back for making the change.

You may want to shorten the term of your mortgage and remortgaging will be a sensible way of saving money. Or you may want to borrow more money so you can free up cash for home improvements, a car or pay off other loans or debts.

It may be that you are coming to the end of your current mortgage deal which will result in you being moved to the lenders standard variable rate.

This is usually a higher rate of interest than a lot of other lenders might offer, so at this point it is always worth shopping around to see if you can save money.

Make sure you tell your current lender you are doing this as they are likely to offer you a good deal to stay with them, which may be better than the rates offered by other mortgage lenders.

If you are looking to remortgage your property to save money, make sure you take into account any fees that you might incur.

You may be locked into your current mortgage deal and have to pay a redemption fee to end it. You will need to factor in this additional cost when you are working out if a new mortgage will save you any money.

Remortgaging can incur costs from the new mortgage suppler that you may not be aware of such as valuation fees, solicitors fees, arrangement fees, broker fees and discharge fees.

Keep these all in mind all the time as a lower rate of interest might seem inviting but if you have to pay additional costs, the amount you are borrowing will increase, and the total you ultimately pay back might be more than on your current mortgage deal.

Despite the fact that you might have to pay extra fees for changing your mortgage, there are still a lot of people who can save significant amounts of money by remortgaging their home.

There is nothing to be lost by doing some investigation either by yourself or by using a mortgage comparison site. You can also get advice from an independent financial advisor.

Want to find out more about remortgages? The following guides may be useful:

• What is a remortgage?

Article by Loans Ireland. Find remortgage information, news and rates on loan and mortgages in Ireland.

This article was checked and updated 2nd December 2017.