Should I remortgage with Abbey now it's been taken over?

Q I have had a mortgage with Abbey since February 2003. I previously had a mortgage with them for ten years at my last house, so you could say I carried the mortgage on to my new house. The thing is I now want to remortgage (I have plenty of equity in my property), for a new kitchen.

I don't know if I am entitled to a share dividend, with the proposed takeover, if it is worth remortgaging or whether I should take out a secured loan against my property with Abbey.

I owe about ?22,000 on my property, and want to remortgage for about ?30,000. The house is valued at about ?80,000.

DK

A I'm sorry to have to disappoint you, but unless you held shares in Abbey at the time of the takeover by Banco Santander, you are not entitled to the special dividend that has recently been paid to Abbey shareholders.

As far as financing your kitchen and other home improvements goes, the advantage of simply increasing your current mortgage with Abbey (assuming you are happy with it) is that it should cost less in terms of arrangement fees and so on - and be less time-consuming - than taking out a second secured loan with another lender.

If you're not happy with the deal you are currently getting from the Abbey, the alternative is to switch all your borrowing (your current mortgage of ?22,000 plus the extra ?8,000 that you want to add to the loan) completely.

This will be worth doing if you can find a better rate than you're currently paying and any fees involved in arranging the new mortgage and/or repaying the old one don't wipe out the savings you make by switching. A good place to look is Moneyfacts.co.uk