Ask an Expert Get free advice from our fast-growing network of financial advisers.

Hi Steve, When you buy a council house you receive a discount. The council usually stipulate that you do not sell the house within a number of years or they will ask you to repay a proportion of the discount. Most lenders will not allow you to remortgage until this period has expired. Some lenders will only accept a mortgage application if the majority of the houses on the estate are privately owned. One other thing to be aware of is that some council houses are of an unusual construction, such as concrete, rather than traditional brick built. If so, then this could cause an issue with some lenders. Hope this helps. Feel free to call if you need anything else. Regards Paul Skinner PKS - Mortgage and Insurance Experts T: 0845 226 5009

Hello (sorry i dont know your name as you didnt post it!) in terms of your brother, there is no CGT liability as he received the asset however from your mother's perspective, the transfer of the asset is regarded as a disposal for CGT purposes even though no cash was paid. HMRC will regard the disposal as liable to CGT if your mother has realised a gain above her CGT allowance for the current year (£10600 after all allowable expenses) but if this has come from dividing land from her home (ie her principal primary residence) then they should be ok. i am surprised that the conveyancer that dealt with land registry for them didnt look into this as a part of their duties. it is also important to bear in mind (as it was a gift) that the sum would be considered liable for inheritance tax (IHT) if your mother were to die within 7 yrs of making this gift, the value would be clawed back into her estate and assessed against the estate for IHT if the value of all of her assets exceeds the prevailing nil rate band (currently £325000) therefore there might be a bigger issue as IHT is charged at 40% rather than the 18/28% for CGT. there are many other allowances and deductions that might mitigate the issue but there are too many to cover off in this type of forum. I would recommend that you speak to your mother about seeing a local professional for further assistance - this could be an IFA or a solicitor that specialises in estate planning (usually comes under "private client" services). feel free to get in touch directly if you need further help, dont publish too much personal data here and of course, the above is just an outline and cannot be considered advice without a more thorough investigation of the situation. darrenasmith@2plan.com

I suppose the answer rather depends on what you mean by ‘toxic’ and how this is viewed by any lenders you approach. If your credit report is stained by past difficulties, your credit rating will recover over time and there may be things you can do now to spruce up the picture your credit history currently paints. If, however, you’re current finances are a bit of a crash zone, new credit may not be the answer and you might be better off seeking free advice from one of the respectable debt charities. Assuming you’re in the former predicament, start by getting hold of your credit report and checking through it carefully. Make sure everything is accurate and up to date, particularly that any previous bad debts are marked as satisfied. Check that you’re on the electoral roll as this can also affect credit scoring. And consider adding a note to explain your past problems, assuming there’s a good reason. If you get a report using the free trial on the Experian website, alongside your credit report you’ll get a benchmarking credit report score and tips on increasing your score in the future. You’ll also find links to match your credit report to credit offers you’re likely to qualify for, which might be a good way to help avoid making wasted applications that could add to your problems. James Jones, Experian

Hi there, Your income may be just about enough for a mortgage of that size but to be honest I think you are going to struggle to find a lender who will offer anything like a reasonable rate with a deposit of that size. Speak to an independent broker or financial adviser to fully work out your options. Best of luck. John

savings rates are changing almost daily as banks and building societies gear up for the ISA season. this is when rates become attractive to entice savers to move their money. there are many comparison sites that will give you data, one such is money supermarket however there are others. do be careful to check that the deposit provider is authorised by the FSA and that your savings will be covered by the FSCS (financial services compensation scheme). you could also try the money advice service, this is heavily advertised on tv at the moment; the service is free at the point of use but the cost is actually charged to the financial services industry, IFAs etc. if you are depositing a large sum, do be aware that the FSCS limit of £85000 applies to all accounts held under the same banking licence per provider, ie savers with the former abbey, alliance & leicester, bradford and bingley, cahoot are all now "santander" and so only one limit of £85000 applies across all of these trading names. a good local IFA will be able to assist you further and you can pay for their services by commission or fee, most will give a free consultation at their cost. look one up at www.unbiased.co.uk

Hello Ashford you need to register with HMRC within 3 months of commencing self-employment. This is in order that your national insurance contributions can be set up and to create a self assessment record. There are fines for late notification. it only takes a few moments on the phone and you will need your normal personal details and NI number. you can find a lot of info on the direct.gov.uk website

That percentage certainly seems excessively high, but it depends on the size of the fund being transferred. This is because there are some fixed costs involved in giving the advice and doing the transfer in the first place. However, I would not expect these fixed costs to amount to more that £500 to £1,000. Then there are the variable costs to do with the size of the fund and the level of complexity and the service being provided. The point being that the larger the pension fund the greater the risk to the adviser and his professional indemnity insurers if the advice is deemed to be wrong in the future, but this should be covered by the fact that the percentage fee is of a larger amount, not by having a larger percentage. Having said all that, I would say that 3% of the fund value with a minimum of £500 to £1,000 would be a much more reasonable figure and I am sure that, like us, many efficient advisers could do it for less. Unless your two existing pensions are in old style contracts and only have capital units, I do not see how the fund value in the new pension could ever catch up with and then exceed the fund values in the existing plans when the new plan is starting with 17% less money in it. The adviser is only doing the transfer once so I don't see why the fixed fee is "for the transfer every month". If the fixed monthly fee is for something else, then it may or may not be reasonable depending on the fee and the service that you are getting for it. Perhaps you could tell us what the fixed fee is? I hope this helps.

Setting up a regular premium pension contract is a one off job, unless the adviser is also monitoring and advising on the fund choices, fund management and rebalancing, for which he seems to be being paid 0.5% of the fund value anyway, so I don't see why there is a fixed fee as well, unless the fund value is small. I would have thought that, as a maximum, a one off fee of between £500 and £1,000 plus say 3% of each premium would be more than enough. I suspect that you will find that the adviser will want to renew the 'fixed fee' each year, but with some indexation for inflation. You will need to look at the illustration that the adviser ought to have provided you with to see the shape of the charges, but it certainly seems as though they are bieng front end loaded. May I ask who the recommended provider is? I suspect that you will find that the 17% applies to the first year of any contribution or any increase in contributions to stop you just waiting for a year and then paying in more. Again, you will need to look at the illustration and documentation to see how the charges are levied and what tiriggers them. By the way, since pensions give tax deferral not tax relief, unless there is an emplyers pension contribution conditional or you also making a contribution, or you are already using your ISA and Capital Gains Tax Allowances in full, you may find that making pension contributions is not the best thing for you to do with your money, as you probably won't live long enough to get out what you have put in. I did a piece on BBC Money Box with Martin Lewis trying to explain this on radio (not easy doing maths over the radio) a while ago. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/8449832.stm Please let me know if I can help further.

Hello Kirsty i dont know if you are still trying to sort this out, but your first port of call should be with the bank/loan provider and with their complaints department. be certain to take notes of dates, times and contact names so that you can log the events as they unfold. you can also lodge a complaint to the information commissioner, the following link will take you to the ICO website and their steps in how to proceed further.... http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints.aspx

Hi Ian, I would recommend you check with a solicitor, but I believe that the properties and the mortgages would become part of your estate. In order for your wife to take on the mortgages, she would have to apply for mortgages in her own name, to repay the debt to the estate (unless there were sufficient funds in the estate to cover the debts). The best thing to do would be to apply to the lender to have the mortgages put into joint names. This would also require some legal work to transfer the "equity" in to joint names, and this would typically cost around £200+vat per property (although you may get a discount depending on the number of properties). In this way, the properties will automatically pass to the surviving spouse on the first death, and the mortgages should be allowed to continue in the sole name (although worth checking with the lender). I hope this helps. Kind regards Paul Skinner http://pks.org.uk

Hi, Thank you for your question. Can you give a little more detail? I am unfamiliar with a "boot property". Thanks Paul Skinner http://pks.org.uk

Hello i have answered more fully on another of your questions but yes, you can save and print copies of all HMRC online data both before submission and after. the difference being that before submission they will be stamped with "not submitted" on each page and afterwards it will show "submitted on ....." with date and time stamp. even if you make a mistake you can go back and correct any entries you need to but if this is done after the filing deadline and it results in you owing money, you should expect the £100 fines to start and the interest. this is not to panic you, more to emphasise the need to complete the return sooner rather than later which will also give you more time to pay the bill as that will also be due (received no later than) 31st January

Jason, As far as affordability goes, a buy to let lender will be more concerned with the rental income - there will be a calculation based on this to assess what they will lend. I'd suggest you use the 'Find a Local Financial Adviser' tool on this site to find a mortgage adviser who can help you. Regarding the deeds, they will be with the equity release provider and will probably be transferred to the new buy to let lender. Your solicitor will handle that for you. Hope that helps, David

Gosh, a few questions there. You don't mention whether you have dependants, whether you are fully recovered from your illness and surgery, how much the mortgage is (capital or monthly), or how much the property is (capital and rental), but as a stab; If you have dependants then the cover is probably a good idea. If you are at greater risk of a claim, either critical illness or life insurance than when you started the policy (perhaps as a result of your illness) then you may wish to keep the policy as replacing it in the future may be prohibitively expensive. If you have insufficient other insurance cover, your income in Australia is dependant on health (i.e. a critical illness would be a financial as well as health problem), or some combination of the above then keeping the cover may be your best option. If you are completely clear on all the above, and £39.66 is a material sum of money, and you can think of no other benefit to the insurance then dumping the cover may be a reasonable option, but think hard as once gone it can often not be reinstated. Please bear in mind that almost definitely the cover is not specifically tied to the mortgage, so paying off the mortgage is an option (an obligation on death, but an option if you suffer a critical illness), the insurance can serve as a general £200k policy if that is something you require. Please check whether it will pay out if you move to Australia, as some covers have limitations. Australia should be fine, but worth checking. Best of luck with your new life.

Hi, It is important to know exactly waht type of bad credit you have, and how it has affected your credit file. Before we can judge whether or not you could obtain a mortgage, it would be a good idea to download a copy of your credit file from Experian or Equifax. We could then look at this and decide which companies, if any, would be willing to lend to you. Also, mortgages are a regulated product, but only for loans of £25,000 or over. As such, mny lenders will not offer a mortgae for less than this amount. It is important to know which lenders could lend such an amount. Alternatively it may be possible to obtain a "secured" loan. This is similar to a mortgage, but typically the interest rates will be considerably higher. I strongly recommend you seek the advice of an independent mortgage broker. We would be happy to discuss your situation further, if you would like to call us on 0845 226 5009. Kind regards Paul Skinner

The ownership of the policy is determined by who the policy holder is or who the policy holders are. It does not matter who the lives assured are. So, if your ex husband is the only policy holder and it is not a policy in joint names, as opposed to joint lives assured, then he can cash it in as it is deemed to be his policy. However, depending on what any separation or divorce settlement says, the value of the policy could be taken into account in determining financial settlements between you.

It does not matter whether Prudential think you are still together or not. What matters is the ownership of the policy. This is determined by who the policy holder is or who the policy holders are. Who the lives assured on the policy are makes no difference. So, if your ex husband is the only policy holder and it is not a policy in joint names, as opposed to joint lives assured, then he can cash it in as it is deemed to be his policy. However, depending on what any separation or divorce settlement says, the value of the policy could be taken into account in determining financial settlements between you.

Assuming that the policy was set up as a qualifying policy (virtually all endowments were) and has been running for more than 10 years and nothing has been done to the policy to affect its qualifying policy status, then there will be no tax to pay at all. Qualifying policy rules are complicated but Aviva will be able to tell you if it is a qualifying policy or not.

Hi, There are a couple of lenders that will consider people with a poor credit score. It would depend on a number of factors, such as why you have a poor credit score, how much you want to borrow, what size deposit you have and whether you are a first time buyer or not. I would suggest you get a copy of your credit report from Experian (Credit Expert) or Equifax. We could then see what issues are affecting your credit score and advise which mortgage options could be available to you. Please feel free to call us on 0845 226 5009 for a no obligation chat. Regards Paul Skinner

Hi. Unfortunately it is not quite that easy to answer. Insurance companies take a lot of information into account when assessing their insurance premiums. Things such as your sex, whether you have smoked in the last 12 months, how much cover you require and what state of health you are in. Assuming your health is okay, then you can get an idea of the cheapest premiums on our website - http://pks.org.uk/lifeprotection.asp - or alternatively please feel free to call us on 0845 226 5009, and we can give you a no obligation quote over the phone.

yes there are options. I have done something similar to what you have described for clients and myself. its not initially the cheapest means of purchasing the land but once you have the first phases sorted it can work out. buildstore are ok but they only deal with 3 lenders - not exactly whole of market! whereas there are other lender options that could at least get you out of the ground and then, as you say, you could switch to a more traditional build. but you will still need a fair amount of capital to get you going as the maximum advance would be 65-70% of the initial value. you can get monies in stage release like a normal self build but clearly the more cash you have to get more work done, the sooner you can move to a more mainstream loan. do be careful though as these types of finance deals are not always regulated by the FSA (which doesnt mean they are bad, just that you have to do you due diligence or be prepared to pay for someone to do it for you). Feel free to get in touch. best of luck with your project.

Thanks for the question. As with most pension related queries the simple answer is "maybe". Firstly, you do have to be age 55 or older to access any pension benefits. Also, the AVC was originally linked to an employer's pension scheme. You will need to check with the Trustees of this emplyer's scheme to see if their scheme rules were amended to allow AVC benefits to be taken at different times to the main scheme. If you can tick both of these boxes then, yes, benefits can be taken now. The benefits can be taken in many different ways so contact me if you need to discuss this further.

This will depend both on what you mean by "Fair" credit rating and on your current affordability. All lenders pass details of our credit worthiness into central databases so that whether we have a mortgage, unsecured loan, credit card, bank overdraft or other facility which could give us some form of credit (HP on a car) a record of how much debt and how well we have handled and repaid it is maintained. Credit facilities held, or simply applied for, (to detect multiple credit applications made at a similar time) are totalled up by value and your income then set against it. It might be that you are deemed able to afford say £20,000 of credit but have only taken up £10,000 of that 'allowance'. A fresh credit provider may see that you already have £20k of facilities so will not grant your further credit based on your current income, even though you have only taken up £10k of it. Those who are late paying get marked down, those who miss a payment completely get black marks and those who breech credit limits - say you go £100 over a £5,000 credit card limit thanks to the addition of interest all get low scores. The best position to be is with a track record of acceptable levels of debt being regularly and reliably serviced and repaid. Perversely those who avoid credit as some kind of 'spawn of the devil' will naturally have no credit record and are therefore very difficult for the credit industry to assess as to their repayments reliability. As a consequence they will get low credit scores just as much as bad credit payers do. Your description 'fair' may simply be your way of saying you expect an average picture – typically going overdrawn a couple of times a year (Christmas and holidays being most common) and sometimes not clearing your credit balance completely every month (not a bad thing in credit terms so long as you are eating into debts, paying at least the minimum on time every month ( Do set up a direct debit to pay the minimum off each month) and so on. If lenders see enough margin to lend based on your present credit history (bear in mind records for any given line of active credit you ever held are kept for up to six years after they were closed) and you have not had any IVAs or CCJs then they will go on to look at your affordability. If this is weak given your other commitments it can be boosted by applying with another person who also has a reasonable credit history and some spare affordability. If you have both an acceptable credit history AND reasonable affordability (different lenders will take a different view on what they deem acceptable both as credit history and affordability) then a £10,000 unsecured loan should be no problem. Note whilst you might feel you can afford to repay £10k over say three years, asking for the same amount but over five years can make it seem more affordable to a lender who could turn you down for the money over three years but allow you to take it over five years !! (5 years is typically the longest loan repayment term for unsecured money). By the way current best buy loans are Nationwide's 6.3%- check out Martin Lewis's excellent Moneysavingexpert site for much more on creditworthiness and best buy credit deals. Hope this helps

Yes you can have a second residential mortgage under your name. I would be very careful when dealing with this. Based on what you are saying: You are hoping to buy a second property on a residential basis and hope to convert it to Buy to Let mortgage in 6months time. This is very risky for a number of reasons: 1. You will need to ensure you can afford to service both properties you own. 2. Most of whole of market lenders require a remortgage client to be resident in property for a minimum of 12months before remortgaging (assuming you will remortgage to a new lender when converting to BTL ) 3. The Buy to Let lending criteria does not seem like it will change in 6months so you may find yourself tied to 2 mortgage agreements. 4. Your new purchase may drop in price and leave you in negative equity. I have mortgage lenders on my whole of market mortgage panel that will lend to 85% LTV buy to let clients. I hope this answer helps somewhat. Please only use this information for illustrative purposes only. To get accurate financial advice please contact me via http://www.xcapade.co.uk Your opportunity to save £500 from my usual mortgage broker charge of £1000 valid until 20th September 2011. Free Mortgage Interest Rate updates: Keep up to date with the current mortgage and remortgage interest rates along with maximum lending amounts and loan to values from the entire UK mortgage market. Detailed information on latest interest rates offered from the whole of market mortgage lenders for both mortgage and remortgage clients. Including: Recent lender lending criteria updates, rate withdrawals, new lender incentives, maximum loan to value, new income multiples, maximum lending, bad credit client and much more. The “Rate Update” facility is usually £24 per year but you can have this for free for a period of 6months if you sign up via http://www.xcapade.co.uk/contact.shtml before the 10th September 2011. Please quote: mortgagethoughts simplyFinance when signing up so that I know why you are receiving the free offer. You are under no obligation to continue with the service and can cancel at anytime.