Services
Our Services
Mortgages
Residential
Even in today’s environment there are still thousands of products offered by a variety of lenders, both high-street names and private banks.
Not only can the choice, at times, seem daunting, but these days arranging a residential mortgage or remortgage isn’t as straightforward as it seems.
Of course there are the usual questions, such as the type of loan you should go for — fixed or tracker, for example — but in the current market lenders are far stricter with their lending criteria and competitive rates far harder to find.
Because of this, the knowledge and contacts of an independent mortgage broker such as Newquay Mortgage and Pensions can be the difference between a costly mortgage and a competitive one.
Importantly, we have access to mortgage products that may be unavailable elsewhere on the market, which can make a real difference at a time when rates as a whole do not seem as competitive as they have been in the recent past.
For those of you who may be looking at a larger than average mortgage, we have years of experience in the high-net-worth arena, and are able to offer bespoke products made to fit your unique requirements.
Equity Release
Equity release schemes enable older home owners to tap into the value of their property without the need to sell up and move out.
There are two main types of scheme – lifetime mortgages and reversion schemes – and deciding which to go for is just one of the decisions you will need to make if you decide to explore this option.
Taking advice, both financial and legal, is key. Extracting money from your home could impact upon many aspects of your finances, from your eligibility to means-tested benefits to the value of your estate when you die.
You need to make sure you understand and plan for any negative financial implications of equity release.
Buy To Let
Buy-to-let is a British phrase referring to the purchase of a property specifically to let out. A buy to let mortgage is a mortgage specifically designed for this purpose.
As for all property rental, the benefits for a buy-to-let landlord can include a stable income from rental receipts, as well as an accumulation of wealth if house prices go up over time. Rising house prices in the UK have made buy-to-let a popular way to invest.
The main risk involves leveraged speculation where the landlord takes a loan to buy the property, with the expectation that the house can be sold later for a higher price, or that rental income will meet or exceed the cost of the loan.
A Buy-to-let mortgage is a mortgage arrangement in which an investor borrows money to purchase property in the private rented sector in order to let it out to tenants.
Buy-to-let mortgages have been on offer in the UK since the late 1990s.
Lenders calculate how much they are willing to lend using a different formula than for an owner-occupied property.
Other Mortgages
Self-build mortgages
A Self Build mortgage scheme typically will provide a Maximum loan to value of 75% of the final building, valuation amount.
Read more: Self-build mortgages
Adverse credit
Your ability to obtain a mortgage is greatly influenced by your credit history. A mortgage applicant with a good credit history is obviously attractive mortgage Lenders. A mortgage applicant with a bad credit record will find their options more limited.
Read more: Adverse credit
Affordable home
The term ‘affordable housing’ refers to the various housing association and Government schemes designed to help people meet their housing needs.
Read more: Affordable home
Section 106
With most new developments, a proportion of houses are often sold as ‘affordable housing’. Local authorities often attach conditions to the way these houses can be sold through what are known as ‘section 106 agreements’ or ‘restrictive covenants’.
Pensions
Personal
What options are available if you don’t want to rely on the state when you retire?
A clear option is to pay into a personal pension.
This is an investment policy designed to provide a lump sum at retirement and an income for life.
Personal pensions do not usually appear on comparison websites. They tend to be more complex than other investment products and highly individual.
Personal pensions are “money purchase arrangements”, meaning you regularly contribute to the policy and the money you save is invested to provide an income at the point of retirement.
Personal pension contributions can be invested in most asset classes including UK and overseas equities, fixed interest, cash and commercial property.
When you invest in your personal pension, there are no guarantees of returns and the value of your investments can fall as well as rise.
Returns are based on the individuals ‘attitude to risk’ and therefore where the monthly contributions are invested.
In April 2014 the Government announced far reaching changes for personal pensions ‘at retirement’. The changes are due to come in to force on April 2015. The changes will provide more options at the point of retirement for most people and it is very important to explore all options available before taking the benefits from a pension fund.
Newquay Mortgage and Pensions are able to provide advice on all aspects of personal pensions and saving for retirement. We strongly recommend a face to face meeting to discuss your requirements and options in more detail.
Self-employed pensions
If you’re self-employed you’re entitled to the basic State Pension in the same way as anyone else. The full basic State Pension is currently available with 30 years of National Insurance contributions (there are proposed changes to this criteria in 2016).
Tax free lump sum
You’ll probably be given the option to take part of your pension savings as a tax free lump sum. Some schemes – particularly public sector schemes – will automatically give you a lump sum in addition to your pension.
Ill health pension
If you are suffering ill health and decide to take your personal or occupational pension, in certain circumstances, there might be other options available to you.
Pensions At Retirement
Traditionally the options at retirement have been limited to a lump sum and/or a monthly income. With product innovations the choices at retirement for the individual have now increased considerably.
Open market option
Traditionally, just before you reach your selected retirement age, you will receive two pieces of information from your pension provider:
Tax free lump sum
You’ll probably be given the option to take part of your pension savings as a tax free lump sum. Some schemes – particularly public sector schemes – will automatically give you a lump sum in addition to your pension.
Income Drawdown
‘Income Drawdown’ can be viewed as a more complicated option at retirement and might not suit every individual especially the risk averse.
Short term annuity
A short term annuity enables you to take a proportion of your pension fund and purchase an income, typically for 5 years.
Enhanced annuity
At the point of retirement, it is up to each individual to ensure they obtain the best benefits available from their pension fund…according to their own personal circumstances.
Ill health
With regard to ill health, any pension scheme can adopt a rule which allows a member to take early retirement (prior to normal scheme / regulators normal retirement age).
Company Pensions
A workplace pension is a way of saving for your retirement but it is arranged by your employer.
Workplace pensions are usually referred to as: ‘occupational’, ‘works’, ‘company’ or ‘work-based’ pensions.
How they work
Usually, a percentage of your pay is put into the pension scheme automatically every payday (although there are some schemes that do not require any contribution from the employee).
In most cases, your employer (and the government by way of tax relief) also add money into the pension scheme for you.
The money is used to pay you an income for the rest of your life at retirement.
You can usually take some of your workplace pension as a tax-free lump sum when you retire.
You can’t usually access the pension before the age of 55 – unless you’re seriously ill.
‘Auto enrolment’
A new law means that every employer must automatically enroll workers into a workplace pension scheme if they:
are aged between 22 and State Pension age
earn more than £8,105 a year
work in the UK
But there are other rules and criteria that can apply.
We can help you check if the new law applies to you and when you may be enrolled into your employer’s scheme.
If you’re already in a workplace pension scheme, you may not see any changes. Your workplace pension scheme could carry on as normal.
But if your employer doesn’t make a contribution to your pension now, they will have to by law when they ‘automatically enroll’ every worker.
Other Pensions
This relates to: Draw down; Open Market options; Short term annuities; Asset backed annuities; State pensions; NEST if you have any other interests, please call us or use the Contact Form.
Draw down
Members of defined contribution pensions schemes (i.e. money purchase, personal pensions and stakeholder pensions) can use their accumulated fund after age 55 to
Open Market options
You have the right to shop around, in order to find the best annuities deals on the market. The fact is that annuity rates vary so much between companies
Short term annuities
Most people are oblivious to the existence of short term annuities. If you don’t know your options and get to retirement, the default option is to automatically take the lifetime annuity.
Asset backed annuities
Asset Backed annuities offer the chance of a higher income than you can get from a level or increasing annuity (often called ‘conventional annuities’) linked to fixed interest assets
State pensions
The basic State Pension is a regular payment from the government that you can get when you reach State Pension age.
NEST
Big changes to how millions of people across the UK will save for their retirement are coming. Here’s what you need to know about the NEST pension scheme and how
Investments
Lump Sum
Newquay Mortgage and Pensions specialise in investment advice for your entire investment portfolio including ISAs, SIPPs, trusts, portfolio planning, offshore tax investments and all tax wrappers.
We are whole of market Independent Financial Advisers offering access to every product and solution in the investment market but we match the advice to an individuals objectives and attitude to risk.
We have a recognised process that minimises the risk of your investing and maximises the reward. We analyse the market both qualitatively and quantitatively to provide the highest level of investment advice.
Our investment process involves the very best specialist research which is tailored to your individual needs and circumstances. This ensures that your investment matches your objectives and attitude to risk.
Tax
We will choose the most tax efficient solution to manage your capital. Whether it’s an ISA, a range of collectives to maximise your annual capital gains allowance, or an offshore bond to maximise tax efficient roll up of your investments, our investment advice team will ensure your capital is not laboured by tax.
Fees
Not all firms charge for advice in the same way. We will discuss your payment options with you and answer any questions you may have.
Our income normally comes from either commission from the product providers (e.g. life assurance companies) , or fees paid to us by our clients. Whenever commission is available to us, you can choose whether to pay us by allowing us to keep the commission, or by paying us a fee instead. This is in line with standard industry practice. We will tell you how much the commission is before the transaction. If you choose to pay us by commission, we will keep the commission and not charge you a fee.
If the payment route selected is fee based (otherwise referred to as Adviser charge) you will be given the option of paying the fee direct to our company, or allowing the fee to be deducted from the contract/policy.
The value of shares and investments can go down as well as up
Your assets are managed on an advisory basis not on a discretionary basis.
Regular Sum
Regular savings or monthly contributions are often considered to be less risky than Lump sum investments. This is due to the benefits of
‘Pound cost averaging’ which we will discuss in greater detail during a face to face meeting.
Our recognised investment process will seek to establish which method is most suitable for our clients.
(In some circumstances the investment strategy might include both lump sum investment and regular savings).
We combine the above information with our robust research and attitude to risk profiling before presenting a tailored solution to our clients.
Tax Free
An Individual Savings Account (ISA) is a financial product available to residents of the United Kingdom. It is designed for the purpose of investment and savings with a favourable tax status.
Money invested in an ISA is not subject to income tax or capital gains tax. Cash and a broad range of investments can be held and whilst there are restrictions on the amount that can be invested (this is reviewed annually) typically there is no restriction on when or how much money can be withdrawn.
ISAs were introduced on 6 April 1999, replacing the earlier Personal Equity Plans (PEPs) and Tax-Exempt Special Savings Accounts (TESSAs).
ISAs are available to UK residents aged over 16, provided that they have a National Insurance number, but individuals between 16 and 18 are only permitted to use the cash component.
There are two broad types of ISA, cash or stocks and shares.
Cash ISA
A cash deposit that is similar to any other ordinary savings account, apart from the tax-free status.
Stocks and Shares ISA
The money can be invested in a broad range of different asset types which will include: Equities (stock and shares) corporate bonds, property and Gilts. Returns are not guaranteed with this type of ISA and therefore this type of investment can fall in value as well as rise.
There is no restriction on the period of investment with either type of ISA although it is usually recommended that Stocks and Shares ISA’s be regarded as medium to long term investments (5 to 10 years).
Other Investments
Other Investments (intro)
Other investment vehicles include OEICs; Unit trusts; Investment bonds; Children’s savings; Structured products.
OEICs
OEICs became available in the 1990s and many long established unit trusts have converted their status to an OEIC over recent years. An OEIC is a company set up specifically for the purpose
of carrying out investment on behalf of its shareholders.
Unit trusts
Unit trusts enable investors to invest in a broad range of stocks, shares and other assets. They are “collective” investment funds, which allow investors to pool their money with other investors to form a fund that is managed by a professional fund manager. Each fund is governed by a trust deed, which establishes how it is run and its investment objectives.
Investment bonds
The Investment Bond is a single premium investment with an element of life assurance cover designed to provide flexibility and choice. It gives you the choice of investing for income, growth, or a combination of both.
Children’s savings
We are able to provide information and advice on a range of children’s savings accounts including Junior ISAs , friendly bonds and deposit based accounts.