Remortgage vs homeowner/secured loan?

Hi all,

So I currently live in a house with zero outstanding mortgage but would like to raise some money to do some work to the house. It's worth around 200k and I would like to raise around 50k. It would be a joint application, we currently don't have high income (around 25k combined) which I've checked is enough to borrow what we want. Our only downside is credit score, mine isn't good and my partners is about average. It comes from things like missed payments here and there, no CCJ/bankruptcy/IVA on either. I have a couple of defaulted accounts which were settled and closed around 5 years ago. I understand there are specialist providers/brokers for mortgages with adverse credit history.

I know the obvious choice would be a remortgage, but I found out also about homeowner loans (or secured loans) and wondered what the pros and cons would be when considering between?

Thanks all!