First Mortgage News

The purchase of a new property rarely goes according to plan, with home buyers regularly encountering obstacles that cause delays and at times, even bring the whole process to an abrupt conclusion. With increasing competition for homes in the UK and the falling number of available properties, many property sales are contested by a number […]

The Scottish Government has announced revised rates for residential properties under the new Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT). This replaces the Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) in relation to residential property transactions in Scotland and comes into force from 1 April 2015. Just after three months of presenting the LBTT, the Scottish Government has […]

The property market in Scotland has undoubtedly faced many challenges during the course of 2014. The start of the year was dominated by the implementation of the Mortgage Market Review (MMR), which saw the tightening of lending and affordability criteria. There was considerable concern its introduction would disrupt the market, however, the mortgage sector has […]

In his Autumn Statement yesterday (3 December 2014), Chancellor George Osborne announced changes to the Stamp Duty thresholds. These changes come into effect from 4 December and it is good news for most home buyers. The key change is that the property sale price is broken up into the different rate bands, rather than paying […]

The recent rate war in the mortgage market has witnessed lenders dropping rates to all time lows in light of recent speculation of an interest rate rise next year. In April, lenders had to contend with the new market affordability rules (as part of the mortgage market review or MMR), which resulted in reduced lending. […]

Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme in Scotland has seen a great deal of success since the introduction, with over 4000 new build purchases expected to be completed by the end of the financial year. However, as a result of this success the allocated funds for 2014/2015 have now ran out. At this point Link […]