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Remortgage completion day is quieter than buying a house. There’s no chain, no moving van and usually no estate agent involved, but there’s still a specific sequence that has to happen before your new deal actually starts. Your solicitor confirms figures with both lenders, funds move to pay off your existing mortgage, and the new charge is registered against your property. Here’s what actually happens on the day, and what to expect if anything runs later than planned.
You'll usually need to give verbal confirmation to your solicitor on the day itself before funds are released, it can't be arranged in advance.
Your new mortgage pays off your existing one; any leftover money, if you've borrowed more than you owed, gets passed on to you.
Registering the new mortgage at the Land Registry happens after completion and can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months.
Using the free legal service offered with some remortgage options can work out cheaper overall, but it's worth comparing against your own solicitor's quote first.
Most of what happens on completion day happens between your solicitor and both lenders, not in front of you.
How HTG Mortgages Can Help
When a remortgage I’ve arranged completes, I call and message the client to let them know, it’s genuinely good news and worth marking. Before that point, one of the things I do is work out whether it’s actually cheaper to use the free legal service that comes with some deals, or to pay your own solicitor and switch lender, once the legal fees either way are weighed up against staying with your current lender on a new rate.
What actually happens on completion day?
Once your remortgage has exchanged, the point where both you and the lender are legally committed, your solicitor asks your existing lender for a redemption statement, the exact amount needed to pay off your current mortgage on the completion date, including any interest up to that day. On the day itself, your solicitor usually needs your verbal confirmation, a phone call, before releasing anything. That confirmation can’t be given in advance, it has to happen on the day.
Once you’ve confirmed, your new lender sends the mortgage funds to your solicitor, who uses them to redeem your old mortgage. If you’ve borrowed more than you needed to clear the old balance, say you’re releasing some equity, the surplus is passed on to you, usually the same day or the next working day.
What happens after the money moves?
After your old mortgage is redeemed, your solicitor applies to the Land Registry to register the new mortgage against your property. This is a separate step from completion itself and it isn’t instant. It can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, depending on the Land Registry’s workload rather than anything you or your solicitor have done. Your new mortgage is in place and active from completion day; the Land Registry step is administrative and doesn’t affect when your new deal starts.
Free legals or your own solicitor, which is cheaper?
Some remortgage options come with free legal work included, which covers the conveyancing cost of switching lender. Others don’t, and you’d need to pay a solicitor to handle it. Whether that matters depends entirely on the numbers: if a deal without free legals still works out cheaper overall once the legal fees are added in, it can beat staying with your current lender on a new rate, and sometimes it’s the other way round. I work this out for clients by getting actual legal quotes and comparing the full cost of each option, rather than looking at the interest rate on its own. For clients around Eastleigh and the wider Hampshire patch, this comparison matters just as much whichever conveyancer ends up doing the work.
Speak to an expert
Whether you’re buying your first home, moving house or remortgaging, HTG Mortgages is here to make the process as simple and stress-free as possible. I’ll compare mortgages from over 120 lenders, guide you every step of the way and help you find the right mortgage for your circumstances.
An example of how it can run
This is an illustrative example, not a specific client. Say a remortgage is agreed with a new lender offering free legal work, and everything looks straightforward until a late query comes back from the outgoing lender a few days before the planned completion date, a common enough hiccup that pushes the date back by a few days. Because the free legal service was already handling both sides of the switch, redoing the redemption figures and rebooking completion is mostly paperwork between the solicitor and both lenders rather than anything the client needs to manage themselves. Completion ends up happening a few days later than first planned, at no extra cost, because the legal work was already covered.
What clients usually ask about completion day
Most questions I get are simply about how the day works and what to expect, rather than anything going wrong. That’s a fair question, because so much of it happens behind the scenes between solicitors and lenders rather than anything you need to do yourself. Beyond the phone call to confirm you’re happy to proceed, there’s usually very little required from you on the day.
What to expect on the day itself
There’s no need to plan around remortgage completion day the way you might for a house move. You don’t need to book time off, arrange removals or be anywhere in particular. The main thing to keep an eye on is your phone, in case your solicitor needs that verbal confirmation, and your bank account, since that’s usually the first sign completion has actually happened, either your old mortgage balance clearing or a surplus payment landing. If you’re buying rather than remortgaging, the process looks different, see what happens on completion day when buying a house.
I collect all of my remortgage articles together if you are planning ahead for a switch.
Need Personal Mortgage Advice?
Every buyer’s situation is different. While this guide explains the general rules, the right mortgage for you depends on your income, deposit, credit history and future plans. If you’d like tailored advice, I’m here to help, with whole-of-market coverage.
