How to Keep Your Mortgage Rate and Clear Your Debts

Last updated: 11 September 2026

Why remortgaging now could mean an early repayment charge

If you're part way through a fixed rate mortgage deal and want to raise money to clear credit card or loan debt, the obvious first thought is often to remortgage. The trouble is that most fixed rate deals charge an early repayment charge (ERC) if you leave before the deal ends, sometimes a percentage of your remaining balance that can run into thousands of pounds. Remortgaging early can also mean moving from a rate you locked in a while ago onto whatever rate happens to be available today, which may well be higher.

This is exactly the situation a secured loan is built for. Rather than unwinding your current mortgage to release money, you take out a second, separate loan secured against your home, alongside the one you already have. Your existing lender, rate and remaining term carry on exactly as they were, and there's no ERC to pay because you're not touching that agreement at all.

How a secured loan leaves your existing mortgage untouched

A secured loan, also called a homeowner loan or second charge mortgage, is registered as a second legal charge against your property, behind the charge your current mortgage lender already holds. It's a genuinely separate agreement, arranged with its own lender, often a specialist secured lending provider rather than your everyday mortgage bank, its own rate, and its own term.

Because your first mortgage is never replaced or renegotiated, nothing about it changes: not the rate you fixed, not the years remaining, not your relationship with your existing lender. What does change is that you take on a second monthly payment, on top of your existing mortgage payment, for the length of the secured loan term.

What the numbers could look like

Here's a simplified example to show how the numbers can work, using the fixed illustrative rates used throughout this site, not a live quote.

	Amount
Current monthly payments (credit cards and a personal loan)	£480/month
New secured loan payment (£15,000 at 7.9% over 15 years)	£141/month
Total repayable over the 15-year term	£25,380

The monthly outgoing drops sharply, and your mortgage payment doesn't move at all. As with any consolidation route, the total repaid over the full term is higher than the amount originally borrowed, because it's spread over many more years than the original credit agreements would have run for. Comparing this total cost against what remortgaging would cost you, early repayment charge included, is something a broker will always do before you commit to anything.

What to check before choosing this route

A secured loan isn't automatically the cheaper option, it's simply the one that avoids an early repayment charge. Whether it actually saves you money depends on your own numbers, so it's worth checking two things before deciding. First, how much of your current fixed term is left: if you're only a few months from the end of your deal, waiting it out and then remortgaging, or taking a further advance, might be simpler and cheaper than starting a second agreement now.

Second, weigh the early repayment charge you'd pay to remortgage early against the extra interest a secured loan would cost you over its own term, since secured loan rates are typically higher than mainstream mortgage rates. Sometimes the early repayment charge is small enough that remortgaging still works out cheaper overall; other times it comfortably outweighs the extra cost of a secured loan. A broker with access to both markets can run this comparison properly, rather than you having to guess.

It's also worth building in the smaller costs on either side: a secured loan typically carries a valuation fee, legal costs and sometimes a broker or lender fee, while a remortgage has its own arrangement and legal fees on top of the early repayment charge itself. Neither route is free of charge, so the true comparison is the total cost of each option over the years you'd actually keep it, not just the headline rate or the monthly payment on its own.

How a secured loan compares with a further advance

Your existing mortgage lender may also offer a further advance, extra borrowing added to your current mortgage account rather than a separate agreement. Like remortgaging, a further advance doesn't touch the fixed rate on the part of the loan you already hold, but the new borrowing is usually charged at your lender's current rate, and not every lender agrees to a further advance for debt consolidation specifically.

If your own lender does offer one and the rate suits you, it can be a straightforward option, since it's a single relationship to manage and there's no second charge to register. If not, a secured loan through a different, specialist lender remains available, and doesn't depend on your existing lender saying yes. See our further advance hub for more on this route if you'd like to compare it properly.

One thing worth knowing either way: a second charge lender is used to working alongside another mortgage, and the registration process for a secured loan is a well trodden path rather than an unusual request. Your existing lender's consent to the new charge is a standard, expected step, not something that typically causes delay or difficulty if your mortgage payments are up to date.

What happens next

If keeping your mortgage rate matters to you, the next step is usually a conversation with a broker who can compare a secured loan, a further advance and a full remortgage side by side, using your actual numbers rather than averages. They'll factor in how long you have left on your fixed deal, your early repayment charge, your equity and your monthly budget, then show you the real cost of each route before you decide anything.

Checking your options this way will not affect your credit score. It's only if you go ahead with a full application afterwards that a formal credit check takes place, and by that point you'll already know which route is likely to work out best for your situation.