Mortgage & remortgage costs

Fees and ERCs before rates

Rate shopping is loud. Cost stacking is quieter and usually more decisive. A new-lender quote that looks 0.2 percentage points cheaper can still lose on a two-year horizon once you add product fee, legal work, valuation, broker fee (if any), clawback of cashback, and — if you leave early — an ERC measured in thousands. Remortgage Lab puts those sterling lines first so a headline APR or pay-rate alone does not set the story.

Independent consumer material from MoneyHelper makes the same point: check the full cost of switching before you treat a remortgage as a saving. Use this hub to choose which cost topic you need, then run numbers in the true cost calculator or the ERC estimator. Scenario rates on this site are labelled EXAMPLE, not live market quotes.

What usually sits in a remortgage cost stack

Most UK remortgage quotes combine some of the following. Not every line appears on every case; free-legals or free-valuation products shift the balance rather than removing the need to check:

• Product / arrangement fee — often hundreds to around £1,000+, sometimes added to the loan (which increases interest) or paid up front.
• Legal / conveyancing — remortgage conveyancing is usually lighter than a purchase, but still a real sterling line unless a free-legal package genuinely covers your case.
• Valuation — may be free, discounted, or full cost; complex or unusual property can change this.
• Broker fee — client-paid fixed fee, percentage, or free-to-client with a lender-paid procuration fee. See the broker vs direct page for framing, not rankings.
• Early repayment charge — if you leave a deal before its end date. Often the largest swing factor. Covered in depth on early repayment charges.
• Cashback / incentives — reduce net cost when paid, but clawback clauses can reverse them if you leave early. Treat clawback as a cost risk, not free money.

Purchase-side stamp duty (England & Northern Ireland SDLT) is not a remortgage fee, but it matters when you are comparing buying and remortgaging paths. The stamp duty calculator is linked from the cards below for that reason. Scotland and Wales use different property tax regimes — see the England, NI, Scotland and Wales guide.

When ERC dominates the decision

If your fixed deal still has months left and the offer uses a percentage of balance, the ERC can dwarf product and legal fees combined. On the shared site EXAMPLE house (£185,000 balance, EXAMPLE 2% ERC method), a full redemption while the charge still applies is about £3,700. Fees to switch on that EXAMPLE path are £1,499 with £250 cashback — a different order of magnitude from waiting until the charge falls away.

That is why timing completion to the ERC end date features so heavily in when to remortgage and remortgaging early. Open the ERC costs page when you need method framing (percentage vs months of interest) and the worked EXAMPLE. Open how ERCs are calculated for formulae. Always read your own offer and Key Facts Illustration — lender schedules differ, and partial overpayments may use different wording from full redemption.

Broker fees versus going direct

A broker fee is one more line in the stack, not a verdict on whether advice is “worth it”. Whole-of-market access, paperwork handling and complex income or credit cases can favour an intermediary. Simple employed cases with clean credit sometimes suit a direct application — and a “free” direct product can still carry a large arrangement fee. Remortgage Lab does not rank brokers or lenders. Use the broker vs direct page as a checklist: what you pay, when it is due, refundability, market access, and advice versus information. Regulated mortgage advice is an FCA-authorised conversation; this site does not provide it.

On the EXAMPLE house the baseline broker fee is £0 so the product/legal stack stays visible. Adding a client-paid fee (for example £499) changes net cost over a 24-month horizon in the same way any other fee does — put it beside the rate gap rather than treating it as a separate moral category.

How to choose a topic on this hub

• Leaving a deal early, or unsure what the charge is? Start with early repayment charges, then the ERC estimator.
• Someone quoted a broker fee, or you are weighing direct? Open broker vs direct, then fold the fee into true cost.
• Comparing two full offers across a fixed horizon? Use the true cost calculator with your figures. Fee types in narrative form live in remortgage fees and mortgage fees explained.
• Cashback versus a lower fee? See cashback vs lower fee.
• Comparing remortgage with staying put via a product transfer? That is a comparisons topic — start at comparisons rather than duplicating it here.

EXAMPLE house used across Remortgage Lab

Where sterling cues help, pages on this site reuse one labelled EXAMPLE case: £185,000 balance, 22 years remaining, current EXAMPLE rate 4.19%, 4 months left on the deal, EXAMPLE ERC 2% (£3,700), transfer EXAMPLE 4.39%, new-lender EXAMPLE 4.14%, fees to switch £1,499, cashback £250, 24-month comparison horizon. Edit every input in the calculators to match your offer. Last checked: 2 November 2026.

Related reading outside this hub

Process and timing sit in Guides: how long a remortgage takes, remortgage process, and how to read an illustration. Glossary stubs for ERC and LTV stay short by design. Calculator assumptions are documented on calculator methodology.

Illustrative only — not personalised financial advice, not a credit or mortgage offer, and not an FCA-regulated recommendation. Always check current lender terms, fees, ERC schedules and your Key Facts Illustration. England & Northern Ireland focus where tax/SDLT rules are cited; Scotland and Wales differ. Published by Rodway Labs.