I thought I knew a fair bit about mortgages but recently I almost ended up with a totally unsuitable loan that could have cost me a lot in fees and early repayment charges. After taking on mortgages for thirty years I really should have known better but we can all still take good advice. I wanted to release equity from my main property to enable me to invest elsewhere but at the time, which was the end of last year, I really wanted to sell it and take the money that way. Anyway I was persuaded that a remortgage was the best way to go. As self employed person I have a limited choice of lenders and I ended up dealing with a mortgage broker who was charging 1% of the advance for his work, and he found a loan that required an arrangement fee of £750. The real worry for me was that the deal was for a fixed rate – good in fluctuating rates – but if I needed to sell early I would have to pay a penalty of £7500. I really started to get a bad feeling about this and I pulled out: the house is now for sale!

As part of my re-education process I had a look at a website called rebuild.org, where there were three interesting stories about home equity loans, and how to get the best from them. It is best to know this first and avoid the mistakes that I made. Even though I did not proceed I did pay out a pointless valuation fee for the mortgage application.