Jargon buster

Loan to Value (LTV):The size of your loan compared to the value of your property. For example, if your home is valued at £100,000 and you have a mortgage of £80,000, your LTV is 80%.

Stamp Duty:A tax you have to pay if you buy a house worth £125,000 or more (if you are a first time buyer this limit increases to £250,000). The rate of Stamp Duty depends on the purchase price of the house.

Fixed Rate:A mortgage where your interest rate is set for an agreed period. This means your monthly payments won't change within the agreed period.

Standard variable rate (SVR):The interest rate that you will pay at the end of any fixed/tracker period. This rate will normally change when the Bank of England’s base lending rate changes.

Tracker mortgage:A mortgage where the interest rate is linked to a bank’s rate (such as the NatWest Bank Base Rate) or the Bank of England Base Rate. This rate is variable meaning that if interest rates fall, so do your repayments. However, your repayments will go up if interest rates increase.

Protection:A general term that can refer to different insurance policies normally associated with mortgages, such as redundancy and long term illness cover, or life insurance.