Buying your home intro
If you want to own your own home, it's likely that you'll need to take out a mortgage to do so.
A mortgage is a special type of loan you take out with specialist mortgage lenders, usually over a long period of time (known as "the mortgage term"), to help pay for your property. If you don't pay the loan back (along with all the fees and interest that are included with it), then the lender can take possession of your house and sell it to recover the money you owe. This is known as "securing the loan against your property."
A mortgage is made up of two parts, the capital and the interest.
The capital is the amount of money you need to borrow to buy your property. The interest is the amount the mortgage lender charges for lending you the money.
Most banks and building societies offer mortgages, as well as specialist mortgage lending companies.