For many borrowers reaching the end of a fixed rate in 2025, the choice appears deceptively simple: accept your current lender’s product transfer (a quick “rate switch”) or go through the longer process of a full remortgage with a new lender. On the surface, the transfer looks attractive: no valuation, no new underwriting, and often no legal fees. But the simplicity can mask a higher lifetime cost and, more importantly, can trap you in a structure that no longer fits your financial goals.

In a market where lenders compete fiercely for low-risk borrowers while tightening criteria for complex cases, understanding the trade-offs is essential. The question isn’t “Which has the lowest headline rate?” but rather “Which route gives me the lowest total cost and the right flexibility over the next few years?” This article unpacks the fee maths, the incentives, the very real underwriting differences, and the practical signals that it’s time to move rather than stay put. Where helpful, we point to deeper reading from our own library, including Can I Get a Mortgage with Complex Income? (for variable pay and complex earnings), Private Bank Mortgages Explained: Benefits and Drawbacks, Debt Consolidation with Property Finance, and our timing guide Is It Time to Remortgage? Key Signs to Watch in 2025.

Why lenders push product transfers and why borrowers like them

A product transfer allows you to slide from an expiring fixed rate to a new one with the same lender, usually in a few clicks. There’s no full application, and unless you increase the borrowing, there’s typically no fresh valuation or legal work. From the lender’s perspective, it’s retention gold: they keep a customer at minimal acquisition cost. From your perspective, it’s frictionless: it can be finalised in days rather than weeks.

Speed matters when you’re staring down the barrel of a reversion to Standard Variable Rate (SVR). In a period of rate volatility, a rapid transfer can prevent a month of expensive payments. Where borrowers have had a change in circumstances — a dip in income, a new job, maternity leave, or a short trading history if self-employed — the absence of re-underwriting can also be a relief.

But convenience has a cost. Because retention pricing is a different battlefield from new-business pricing, the rate you’re offered to stay might not be the best you could achieve elsewhere. Just as importantly, a transfer keeps you in the same mould: the same broad structure, the same constraints on term, repayment type, and ownership. If your objectives have evolved, the PT can quietly become the expensive option because it blocks the smarter move you should be making.

When staying put really is sensible

There are moments when a transfer is good stewardship rather than inertia. If your loan-to-value (LTV) hasn’t improved — perhaps the property hasn’t appreciated enough or you’ve not repaid much capital — the rate advantage of switching lenders can be small. If your income has recently become more complex or temporarily lower, skipping fresh affordability checks can be prudent. And if you intend to hold the property only briefly (for example, you plan to sell next year), paying legal and valuation costs to remortgage might not pay back in time.

Portfolio landlords often blend strategies: transferring on one or two mortgages to secure rate certainty quickly while preparing a full remortgage on others where revaluations could unlock materially better pricing. For a sense of how timing decisions influence outcomes, our piece Is It Time to Remortgage? Key Signs to Watch in 2025 outlines the practical triggers we monitor with clients.

The quiet power of switching lenders

A full remortgage involves a new application, an affordability assessment, a valuation, and conveyancing. That sounds like hassle because it is. But it also opens doors that retention products keep closed. New lenders compete for your business; they may price sharper at your LTV band, offer features your current lender won’t, or view your income more generously. If your property value has risen, a new valuation can drop you into a lower LTV tier and unlock a better rate — a lever a product transfer rarely pulls.

Remortgaging is also when you can reshape the loan to fit your life: lengthen or shorten the term, change from capital repayment to interest-only (or vice versa), incorporate an offset facility for cash management (see our primer on Everything You Need to Know About Offset Mortgages), consolidate expensive short-term borrowing sensibly (Debt Consolidation with Property Finance), or release capital for improvement works or investment.

For landlords refining yield in a tighter market, our analysis in UK Buy-to-Let Strategies in 2025: What Investors Need to Know shows how refinancing at a lower LTV and re-terming the debt can lift cash flow — a transformation a simple PT cannot deliver.

Fee maths that borrowers actually feel

Comparisons should be made on total cost over the fixed period, not the headline rate or the presence (or absence) of fees. Consider a straightforward example on a £400,000 balance:

• Stay with a Product Transfer at 4.89% for two years, no fees.
• Switch via Full Remortgage at 4.39% for two years, with a £999 arrangement fee and £400 combined legal/valuation costs.

On these numbers, the transfer looks cheaper at first glance because there’s nothing to pay up front. But the monthly difference — roughly £108 lower on the remortgage — compounds over 24 months. After accounting for the £1,399 fees, the borrower is still ahead by around £1,193 over the two-year period. If a fresh valuation drops the LTV and the borrower secures 4.09%, the saving grows further, often into the £3,000–£4,000 range over the same horizon.

Two punchlines matter. First, even modest rate improvements can outstrip fees surprisingly quickly. Second, what looks “free” (a PT) may be the costlier choice over time. Good advice will model this for you, including early repayment charges where relevant and any cashback incentives.

The underwriting fork in the road

A transfer and a remortgage are not just two prices; they are two processes with very different rules.

On a product transfer, the lender typically doesn’t reassess income, doesn’t re-run full affordability, and doesn’t instruct a new valuation. That’s why it’s fast. It’s also why it’s rigid: if you want more borrowing, a term change, or an ownership change (e.g., adding a spouse or moving a buy-to-let into an SPV), you’ll usually trigger a full underwrite anyway.

On a remortgage, you will be re-underwritten. For many, that’s a benefit rather than a burden. If your credit has improved, your rental income is stronger, your company accounts are healthier, or your employment has stabilised, new lenders may offer better terms precisely because they reassess you. Borrowers with variable or multi-source income — bonus, commission, dividends, or retained profits — often find a better fit with lenders who understand their profile. Our explainer on variable earnings, Can You Get a Mortgage with Bonus, Commission, or Variable Income in 2025?, sets out how different underwriters treat non-base pay.

For high-net-worth clients, private banks write an entirely different playbook. They may assess liquidity and assets rather than purely income, permit interest-only with defined repayment strategies, or offset investment portfolios against loan margins. If your circumstances point that way, start with Private Bank Mortgages Explained: Benefits and Drawbacks to understand when relationship-based lending outperforms the high street.

Incentives and “free legals”, useful, but not decisive

Lenders court remortgage business with cashback and free legal packages. These can be valuable, but they are marketing levers, not verdicts on best value. We routinely see cases where a slightly higher fee product produces a lower effective two- or five-year cost once you factor in the rate differential. The correct way to use incentives is to put them into the calculator last, not first: choose the best structure for your objectives, then let incentives tilt between otherwise close options.

Time and timing

A product transfer is often concluded within two to five working days. A full remortgage is more like three to six weeks, dictated by valuation diaries and solicitor throughput. If you’re within a month of your current fix ending, the clock matters. The mistake is assuming time is the only variable. With experienced case management it is usually possible to line up the remortgage to complete the day after your ERC ends, avoiding both SVR exposure and early repayment penalties. When market rates are drifting down, timing can add thousands to the outcome — we discuss this dynamic in Is It Time to Remortgage? Key Signs to Watch in 2025.

Flexibility: the most underrated reason to switch

Many borrowers fixate on rate to the exclusion of structure. Yet it’s structure that often determines whether you meet your goals. A transfer tends to freeze-frame your mortgage: same repayment basis, similar term, limited change in ownership or covenants. A remortgage lets you redesign the instrument to fit new realities: a growing family, a business you now run, a rental strategy that calls for interest-only cash-flow optimisation, or a desire to hold larger liquidity buffers using offset. The value of that flexibility can dwarf a tenth of a percent on the rate.

If short-term liabilities are squeezing you, a remortgage can consolidate them into cheaper, longer-dated borrowing — sensibly, and with eyes open to total cost — as we outline in Debt Consolidation with Property Finance. That is not something a product transfer is designed to do.

Signals that it’s time to move, not switch

If any of the following resonate, the full remortgage deserves a serious look:

• Your LTV has fallen meaningfully because you’ve repaid capital or the property has appreciated.
• You need additional borrowing for upgrades, investment, or consolidation.
• Your income has improved or stabilised, and re-underwriting would now favour you.
• You want offset, interest-only, a term change, or an ownership restructure (e.g., into a limited company on buy-to-let, for which our series on structuring — including Limited Company Mortgages Explained — is a helpful primer).
• You’re considering the private bank route because your wealth profile is better captured by assets and liquidity than PAYE salary.

If none of these apply, your lender’s transfer might be a clean, low-friction answer for this cycle — and we’ll still check the market to confirm you aren’t leaving material savings on the table.

How we compare the two for clients

Our process is deliberately plain. First, we obtain every retention product available from your current lender. Next, we run a whole-of-market search for remortgage options at your current, and then at plausible improved, LTV bands (based on realistic valuation ranges). We model total cost over your chosen fixed period, including arrangement fees, legals/valuation, cashback, and any ERC overlap. Then we test fit: will the structure serve your aims for the next two to five years? Only when the numbers and the structure align do we recommend a path.

Sometimes that’s a product transfer — speed and simplicity with negligible opportunity cost. Often it’s a remortgage — lower cost and better flexibility. Occasionally it’s a private bank discussion because your profile warrants it. The point is not to be precious about route; it’s to be precise about outcome.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: Is a product transfer cheaper than a remortgage?
Not always. PTs save on fees, but full remortgages often deliver better long-term value through lower rates or higher borrowing capacity.

Q2: How long does a product transfer take in 2025?
Most are completed within 2–5 working days. Remortgages typically take 3–6 weeks depending on valuation and legal timescales.

Q3: Can I borrow more with a product transfer?
Only rarely. Increasing your loan amount triggers full underwriting — effectively turning it into a remortgage.

Q4: Do I need a solicitor for a product transfer?
No. PTs are processed internally by your lender, with no conveyancing required.

Q5: When does it make sense to remortgage instead?
If your property value has risen, your income has improved, or you need greater flexibility, a full remortgage is usually the smarter long-term move.

Ready to choose wisely?

If your rate ends within the next six months, now is the moment to test both tracks. We’ll tell you, in pounds and pence, what staying costs versus moving, and we’ll structure the loan so it works for what’s next in your life — not just what was true when you last fixed.



Talk to Willow Private Finance. We’re whole-of-market, pragmatic, and relentlessly focused on net benefit and fit.