Releasing equity advice please..

ferry

I hope someone can advise us on something which is just a thought at the moment.
We have a home and are mortgaged.
Basically we have been on a repayment mortgage for the last 9 years and have been making really good progress in getting our mortgage paid off sooner and as a result now have a home worth aroud £240k and a mortgage of around £110k and would like to 'unlock' about £20k from the equity we have in our home to improve it.
We would also clear a CC card bal of around 5K in the process.
We'd really like to know if we decide to take this direction how we would go about it -would we need to use our current mortgage broker to apply through or do we approach our lender direct?
Bit of background-I earn around £24k per year and wife earns around 6k per year no other debt apart from CC.We've been with NR for only about 6 months though
Would we restructure our mortgage or would we borrow an additional amount alongside our existing mortgage?
How are banks with 'additional borrowing' these days..?
Any advice on how to proceed and if we're doing the right thing appreciated
Regards
F.

HellsGranny

I too am thinking of Equity Release, but I am in a good position of owning two houses outright, so as far as I am concerned there is little risk.

I don't know how old you are, but many scemes are Age- specific too.

But for You with a mortgage already, it might be better to take a second mortgage rather than go the Equity Release route. There have been some horror stories when pensioners have taken out sums against their houses, then found when they needed to move into a smaller place, that the equity left was not enough for them to do so. Take Independant Financial Advice, rather than your Bank's. before doing anything.

Cheers, HG

Debt_Free_Chick

There is no such thing as equity release, if you intend to continue to own the property.

Equity only exists when you sell and then it's the cash you have from the sale, after the mortgage and any other secured loans are paid off, together with the costs of selling.

If you're not selling, then you have no equity. If you intend to raise cash against the property, you are simply increasing your mortgage. It's fine to do that, but if property prices fall - or, more importantly, if the price of YOUR property falls - then you are left with a bigger mortgage and a property of lower value.

Ignore all suggestions of "equity release" and simply ask yourself if you want a bigger mortgage. And then ask yourself if you would be happy/comfortable with that bigger mortgage if your property was valued at 10% less than it's current day estimate ...? Or 20% ....?