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17/10/2026

The part that takes time is not the mortgage. It is the paperwork a lender wants from someone who pays themselves through a company.

Most lenders will let you reserve a new rate up to six months before the current one ends, and most will let you move to a different product before completion if something more suitable appears. Reserving early is closer to holding a place in a queue than signing anything binding. Worth knowing before the renewal letter arrives.

The timing detail that catches business owners: lenders commonly want two years of finalised accounts, and they read salary plus dividends, or share of net profit, quite differently from one another. If your year end is March and the accounts are signed off in December, an application made in October is assessed on older figures. Six months of lead time lets you choose which set of numbers the lender sees.

Often the conclusion is a product transfer with the existing lender. No new underwriting, no advice fee, done in an afternoon. We will say so when it is the case.

Free guide - the remortgage timeline: https://guides.dmfinancialplanning.co.uk/remortgage-timeline



Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. This is general information, not personal advice.

DM Financial Planning is a trading style of Aegis Financial Planning Limited, authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 624298).

16/10/2026

A lender does not see your business. It sees your filed accounts and your SA302s or tax year overviews, usually two of each, and it reads them in about four minutes.

For a company director, declared income is normally salary plus dividends actually drawn. Profit deliberately left in the business for working capital counts for nothing with most lenders. A smaller group will work from salary plus your share of net profit instead, which can describe the same company very differently.

Take a director on £30,000 salary and £20,000 of dividends, with £60,000 retained. At four and a half times income, the first approach frames the conversation around £225,000. The second starts somewhere else entirely. The Bank of England's loan-to-income flow limit still caps how much lending at or above 4.5 times any individual lender can write, so the appetite varies by institution and by month.

The unprofitable part, from where we sit: planning a purchase well sometimes means holding more in cash and less invested for a year or two, or drawing more and paying more tax on purpose. Worth modelling before the application, not after a decline.

Free guide - the Home Purchase Checklist: https://guides.dmfinancialplanning.co.uk/purchase-mortgage



Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. This is general information, not personal advice.

DM Financial Planning is a trading style of Aegis Financial Planning Limited, authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 624298).

15/10/2026

Cash parked on a company balance sheet tends to be treated as a decision deferred. It isn't. It is a decision to hold the money where it is, with whatever that implies for corporation tax, for your eventual exit, and for how the profit is eventually extracted.

An employer pension contribution is one route out. It is deductible against corporation tax as a business expense, it carries no employer National Insurance (15% from April 2025), and it is not taxed as income for the director at the point it is paid. The annual allowance is £60,000, and carry forward can draw on unused allowance from the previous three tax years where you were a scheme member. Above £260,000 of adjusted income, tapering reduces that figure, potentially to £10,000.

The contribution must also satisfy the wholly and exclusively test, which means it has to be justifiable as remuneration for the work actually done.

The unprofitable part: this is a one-way door. Normal minimum pension age is 55, rising to 57 in April 2028. If the business may need that capital as working capital, the pension is the wrong place for it.

Free guide - Pension Review: https://guides.dmfinancialplanning.co.uk/pension-review



The value of investments can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you invest. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may change. This is general information, not personal advice.

DM Financial Planning is a trading style of Aegis Financial Planning Limited, authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 624298).

14/10/2026

Most people think of scattered pensions as an admin problem. The part that gets overlooked is that each scheme holds its own expression of wish form, and each trustee acts on the version they hold. A form completed in 2009, before a divorce or a second marriage, is still live unless someone updates it.

There is a second reason a single view matters. The lump sum allowance of £268,275 applies across all your pensions combined, not per scheme. If you are drawing tax-free cash from one arrangement while two others sit untouched, the running total is yours to track, not the provider's.

The unprofitable part: consolidation is not always the answer. Older schemes can carry a protected tax-free cash entitlement above 25 per cent, a protected pension age, or guaranteed annuity rates that a transfer would extinguish. Sometimes the work concludes that three of the four should stay exactly where they are.

Dwaine Martin, Chartered Independent Financial Planner, works with business owners and executives who want the whole picture assembled before any decision is taken about it.

Free guide - Pension Review: https://guides.dmfinancialplanning.co.uk/pension-review



The value of investments can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you invest. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may change. This is general information, not personal advice.

DM Financial Planning is a trading style of Aegis Financial Planning Limited, authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 624298).

13/10/2026

Most workplace pensions carry a quiet instruction inside them: a selected retirement age, usually set by default the day you joined, often 60 or 65. Nobody revisits it. The scheme acts on it anyway.

Ten years out from that date, lifestyling begins shifting the pot towards bonds and cash, on the assumption an annuity gets bought on the day. A business owner of fifty-two who expects to sell at sixty-three may already be de-risking towards an event that has never been part of the plan. Worth checking what date your scheme thinks you're working towards.

The unprofitable part: a proper review quite often concludes that an old contract stays exactly where it is. Some pre-2006 policies carry guaranteed annuity rates, protected tax-free cash above the usual 25 per cent, or a protected pension age. Those features are generally lost on transfer, and no adviser fee replaces them.

Two dates belong in the same conversation. Normal minimum pension age rises from 55 to 57 in April 2028. And taking taxable income flexibly from a defined contribution pot triggers the Money Purchase Annual Allowance, cutting future contributions to £10,000 a year. Both are easier to plan around than to unwind.

Free guide - Pension Review: https://guides.dmfinancialplanning.co.uk/pension-review



The value of investments can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you invest. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may change. This is general information, not personal advice.

DM Financial Planning is a trading style of Aegis Financial Planning Limited, authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 624298).

12/10/2026

Most mortgage offers remain valid for three to six months from issue, and many lenders will let you reserve a rate that far ahead of your current deal ending. That creates a window rather than a deadline. If pricing moves in your favour before completion, a number of lenders allow you to re-select onto the newer product. If it does not, you already hold something.

For business owners the six months matters for a different reason. Lender treatment of self-employed income varies considerably: some work from salary plus dividends, others from share of net profit, and most want two years of figures. If your year end has not been filed, the arithmetic a lender sees may not be the arithmetic you recognise. Six months is enough time to have that sorted.

The unprofitable part: sometimes the answer is a product transfer with your existing lender, which involves no new affordability assessment, no conveyancing and very little of our time. Worth knowing before you assume a full remortgage is the only route.

Dwaine Martin, Chartered Independent Financial Planner, DM Financial Planning.

Free guide - the remortgage timeline: https://guides.dmfinancialplanning.co.uk/remortgage-timeline



Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. This is general information, not personal advice.

DM Financial Planning is a trading style of Aegis Financial Planning Limited, authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 624298).

11/10/2026

An underwriter reads your company accounts differently from your accountant. The accountant is working to reduce the tax bill. The lender is working out what it can lend against, and the two aims point in opposite directions.

In practice, most lenders assess a director on salary plus dividends actually drawn, evidenced by SA302s and tax year overviews, usually across two or three years, with an average or the lower year taken. Profit retained in the company is often disregarded entirely, though a minority of lenders will consider salary plus share of net profit with an accountant's reference. Affordability is then stress tested against a higher notional rate under MCOB, so the borrowing figure is rarely the one you had in mind.

The unprofitable part: the structure that keeps your tax bill sensible for three years can quietly reduce what you can borrow in year four. Drawing more to fix it costs dividend tax, potentially at 33.75 or 39.35 per cent.

It is a sequencing question. Worth resolving before the offer goes in, not after.

Free guide - the Home Purchase Checklist: https://guides.dmfinancialplanning.co.uk/purchase-mortgage



Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. This is general information, not personal advice.

DM Financial Planning is a trading style of Aegis Financial Planning Limited, authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 624298).

10/10/2026

Most director pension conversations start with the individual's allowance. It is often more useful to start with the company's accounting date, because an employer contribution is only deductible in the accounting period in which it is actually paid — not accrued, paid. A contribution agreed in March and settled in May lands in a different set of accounts entirely.

The arithmetic is worth seeing in full. Take £60,000 of retained profit in a company paying corporation tax at 25%. Routed as an employer pension contribution, and assuming it meets the wholly and exclusively test, the full amount can go across with no employer or employee National Insurance. Taken as dividend, that same £60,000 becomes £45,000 after corporation tax, and a higher-rate shareholder pays 33.75% on it — leaving under £30,000 in hand.

The unprofitable part: that money is then locked until 55, rising to 57 in 2028. If the business may need working capital, or you are funding a property purchase in three years, the tax outcome is beside the point. Liquidity comes first.

Carry forward can allow unused allowance from the previous three tax years, which matters for lumpy profits. Dwaine Martin, Chartered Independent Financial Planner, is happy to walk through the timing with your accountant in the room.

Free guide - Pension Review: https://guides.dmfinancialplanning.co.uk/pension-review



The value of investments can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you invest. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may change. This is general information, not personal advice.

DM Financial Planning is a trading style of Aegis Financial Planning Limited, authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 624298).

09/10/2026

Most people with several pensions can tell you roughly what the pots are worth. Far fewer can tell you what sits inside them, and that is the part doing the work.

Take three former workplace schemes, each left in its default fund. On paper that looks diversified. In practice you may hold the same large-cap equities three times over, alongside a slice of cash in each pot that nobody chose deliberately. Add three separate charging structures and you have a position you own but have never actually designed.

The unprofitable thing to say is that tidying this up is not always the answer. Older contracts sometimes carry guaranteed annuity rates, protected tax-free cash above the usual 25%, or a protected early retirement age. Where safeguarded benefits exceed £30,000, regulated advice is required before any transfer, precisely because those features can be worth more than the convenience of a single statement.

The first piece of work is simply seeing it all in one place: combined allocation, total cost, and what each contract gives up if it moves. Occasionally the conclusion is to leave things exactly where they are.

Free guide - Pension Review: https://guides.dmfinancialplanning.co.uk/pension-review



The value of investments can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you invest. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may change. This is general information, not personal advice.

DM Financial Planning is a trading style of Aegis Financial Planning Limited, authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 624298).

08/10/2026

Most workplace pensions set up before 2015 were built around one assumption: you would buy an annuity on a fixed date. Many still run a lifestyling glidepath that quietly shifts you out of equities in the ten years before a selected retirement age, and that age is often whatever the default was on the day you joined. If you signed up at 34 and never touched it, the machinery may be de-risking towards a date that has nothing to do with your actual plans.

The second thing worth knowing at fifty-plus is the money purchase annual allowance. Take taxable income flexibly from a defined contribution pot and your future contribution allowance drops to £10,000 a year. Taking tax-free cash alone does not trigger it. For a business owner still making employer contributions, the sequencing of those two decisions matters more than the investment choice inside the pot.

Also worth diarising: the normal minimum pension age rises from 55 to 57 on 6 April 2028, with protections for some older schemes.

We look at these before anything is moved. Sometimes the honest answer is that the existing scheme is perfectly good and the charge is lower than ours. If you would like that read, Dwaine will do it properly.

Free guide - Pension Review: https://guides.dmfinancialplanning.co.uk/pension-review



The value of investments can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you invest. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may change. This is general information, not personal advice.

DM Financial Planning is a trading style of Aegis Financial Planning Limited, authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 624298).

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