In life, unforeseen challenges can certainly cast a shadow over our carefully laid plans. When it comes to health, the unpredictability of critical illnesses poses a significant threat to our well-being and financial stability. In the face of such uncertainties, a...
Questions to ask for first-time home buyers answered by Oportfolio Getting on the property ladder can feel like an impossible task. Although still a challenge for many, there is a lot of help available for first-time buyers to get a mortgage and their first home. Here...
Going to the gym helps you build your fitness and improve your endurance. Aside from the obvious physical benefits, the gym can also help your mental well being, by improving your mood, sleep, and brain function. When you’re living and working in London, life can be...
Given everything that’s been going on in the housing market over the last four months, it may be that you’re looking at the various factors at play and thinking that perhaps now is a good time to take the next step on the housing ladder. With the recent announcement...
There’s no doubt that lockdown has been a time of great stress and worry for many people as fears over finances, job security and, most important of all, the health of loved ones added up to create the most uncertain of times in recent memory. There is no doubt, too,...
Last Wednesday (July 8th 2020) the Chancellor the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, announced a sweeping change to the rules around Stamp Duty – or Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) to give it its full title. When the property sector was reopened in May, there were fears that the...
The UK property market has now been open again for six weeks following its enforced two-month suspension during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown and, with the easing of government restrictions on property transactions, the buy-to-let (BTL) market has also begun to...
So the housing sector has reopened after seven weeks of lockdown and maybe the time spent in close proximity to your family has exposed the shortcomings in your current home. Or perhaps you’d been drawing up plans to move to somewhere new before the coronavirus struck...
The coronavirus lockdown has been an absolute game changer for anyone who had spent the first quarter of 2020 planning a spring or summer move. It hasn’t just been down to the Government’s measures effectively shutting down the residential housing sector; other...
As the UK takes its first tentative steps towards coming out of lockdown, the worries that enforced social isolation brought – concerns over job security, food shortages and the clear risk to health – are for many people being replaced by new anxieties relating to...
If you’re a homeowner, then chances are you’ll already have a life insurance policy in place to cover your mortgage, either because you decided it was the smart thing to do (which it is), or because your mortgage lender insisted on it. If you don’t currently have a...
As we enter the sixth week of lockdown, it’s not surprising that many people have spent much of the time in isolation from the rest of the world thinking about their health, financial security and the ways in which they can best protect themselves in the future. From...
As we approach the end of our fifth week of enforced social distancing, the impact on how we live life and – crucially – how we manage our personal finances has been radically altered. The government’s fiscal response to the current crisis has been focused...
The Government has promised that homeowners whose income is affected by the coronavirus/Covid-19 outbreak will be eligible for mortgage payment relief in the form, initially, of a suspension of repayments for three months. Is everyone eligible? No. Although the...
Any veteran property owner who’s been through the process of applying for a mortgage in the last few years will tell you that there are a lot more hoops to jump through these days than there used to be before 2008. Although lenders have become more competitive in the...
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