Mortgage Offer. This is confirmation that your application has been approved. Your Gen H mortgage offer is valid for a certain period of time. Please check the expiry date on your offer, which can be found on page 3, under ‘offer expiry’.

Mortgage Illustration. This document is tailored to your mortgage needs and details things like your monthly repayment and interest rate.

Mortgage Deed. By signing this deed, you give us (your mortgage lender) permission to place a lien on your property. In exchange, we lend you money.

Tariff of Charges. These are the fees and charges you may have to pay before we transfer your mortgage funds.

Terms and Conditions. These cover repayment details, interest rate adjustments, administrative charges, minimum early repayment notice and/or penalties, insurance, as well as the use and maintenance of the property.

Your solicitor is responsible for ensuring all Deeds are signed correctly. The Mortgage Deed is to register Gen H's charge as the mortgage lender for your property. The Property Deed will register the ownership of the property.

Solicitors take it from here.

The time it takes to go from mortgage offer to completion varies wildly, anywhere from weeks to several months.

A mortgage is a secured loan and will usually include a lien on the property.

A lien is a legal vehicle to recover losses on a loan. They state that the lender has the first right to the property in order to recover the money they lent to buy the property.

The word “mortgage” is composed of the words “mort” and “gage” — defunct terms for “dead” and “pledge.”

Sounds grim, but it’s more figurative than literal.

According to John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins, “The notion behind the word is supposedly that if the mortgagor fails to repay the loan, the property pledged as security is lost, or becomes ‘dead,’ to him or her.”