Home Improvement Loans

dave18

Considering our options to fund refitting a new kitchen, garage conversion and utility room (~£30k of work). Both my wife and I have excellent credit scores + low short term debt.

As we can't wait 2 years to save such funds we will utilise 0% card(s) for appliances and options for the remainder include:

- Home Improvement tracker mortgage @ 2.49% from my current mortgage provider (Santander)

- Conventional loan @ in theory a similar rate but as we all know is often several %points higher than the representative rate 

My questions are:

1) Is the long term cost of the home improvement loan greater than the conventional loan?
2) Are we restricted to only our existing mortgage provider for the secondary mortgage?
3) Should we be considering other options?

[Deleted User]

1) it depends on the rate and the term

2) no

3) check your credit files (not the pretend credit scores) and use an eligibility checker.  What options might you have? What forms of payment will your suppliers accept? Do any offer finance? Can the work be done in stages?