| Money’s tied up in the business and your company’s growing? Yet you want to remortgage or buy a house that befits your standing. Don’t fret, mortgage lenders have cottoned on to need for tailored mortgages for business owners. While you may already own your own home, you could well be thinking about re-mortgaging, either to scale up to a more expensive property or to build up a property portfolio to keep you comfortable in your old age. Whatever the case you will find yourself needing a mortgage, and the odds are this mortgage could be for big bucks. With roperty prices being so high, a million may only get you a small semi in Surbiton. But, if your business is young and you are essentially self-employed, your current financial worth or earning potential may not be reflected in your accounts, which can lead to frustrating bank meetings and refused loan applications. It is always worthwhile investigating full status mortgages first, finding out the maximum your lender will lend, as mortgages are growing increasingly flexible. Don’t just look at the basics though. The nature of running a business means flexibility may be more important than figures: “It’s very easy to be attracted to a headline rate, but the actual product may not suit the individual’s repayment model, for example, will the borrower incur any penalties for making ad-hoc overpayments?,” says Kunle Olafare, assistant manager at Kleinwort Benson Financial Services. Some brokers do offer exclusives for high net individuals, usually for loans over a certain size, say 250,000. The loan typically is fixed a couple of points below the current base rate and so if you are a big borrower with books to match it’s worth asking about special deals. If, on the other hand, your business is in its infancy, or you are sinking profits back into the company you may need to take an entirely different approach. Thankfully canny banks and brokers are waking up to this potential gap in the market, and anxious as everyone is to keep the property boom moving ever upwards, now is a good time to find a mortgage tailored to the entrepreneur’s individual needs. | 
