Whether you’re a first-time buyer, moving home or staying put and remortgaging, this site can help you choose a suitable mortgage. You’ll find everything you need to know: how mortgages work, how you can work out what you can afford, and where you can go to compare mortgages. Our jargon buster will help make mortgages clearer for you.

If you’d like more detailed information, get our Mortgages booklet. You can download or order it online at Publications.

A mortgage is like any other kind of loan – you borrow money, and you pay it back with interest over a period of time. But it has one key difference: it’s secured against your home. So if for any reason you can’t repay it, the lender can sell your home to recover their money.

Although we regulate the way the majority of mortgages are sold, in most cases we don't regulate buy-to-let mortgages. This means you may have less protection if things go wrong with a buy-to-let mortgage. Buying a property to let is a long-term investment which you hope will generate an income from rents and a capital gain when you sell the property. There is no guarantee that you'll make a profit on your investment.

For information on 'buy-to-let' see the Council of Mortgage Lenders’ (CML) leaflet 'Buying to let' on their website at Related links.