When you are remortgaging you will have to make a decision as to whether to get tied in to a mortgage or not. There are quite a few lenders who have fixed rates, but you have to stick with them and this can be a bit of a gamble.
Fixed rates can be really good. They may be lower than the current rates and remain lower, so you can save a lot of money. They will also allow you to know exactly how much you will have to pay back each month. This can be useful if you have a very tight budget and cannot afford for the payments to go up.
However, there can be disadvantages as well. If you are tied in to a rate and the base rate falls, you may find that there are a lot of better mortgage rates out there. However, you will not be able to change your lender and therefore will not be able to take advantage of them. This can be annoying.
Therefore making a decision to tie yourself in to a mortgage can be an important one. You have to consider what you think may happen to interest rates in the future and whether you think you will do well to be tied in. If you think that rates will rise, then it can be good to be tied in to protect yourself from those rises. However, if they do not rise much or take a long time to rise, you may still not be as well off as the rate you are fixed rate could be quite high anyway.
You may like the idea of knowing exactly how much to pay each month. However, once that fixed term ends, you may find the repayments have to move to the standard variable rate which could be a lot higher and this could make it difficult to be able to pay. You may even be tied in beyond the fixed period and have to pay this high rate for a while.
So you will need to consider the term that you will be tied in for and the interest rate. You may need to try to predict what the rates might do and act accordingly. There are a lot of unknowns and so it can be a risk and each individual case will have a different reason for and against doing it. You will therefore have to decide what will be best for you.