The Remortgage Process in Ireland, Step by Step

Step 1 — Approval and loan offer

The process starts with the new lender, usually through a broker or the bank directly. Once you pass affordability and credit assessment, the lender issues a formal letter of loan offer. The offer is addressed to you but a copy goes to your solicitor, together with the lender's standard pack of conditions and certificates.

Loan offers have expiry dates — commonly measured in months — and a remortgage that drifts can outlive its own offer. Note the expiry date on day one and treat it as the deadline for the whole transaction.

Step 2 — Taking up your title deeds

Your existing lender holds your title deeds as security. Your solicitor requests them on accountable trust receipt — a formal undertaking to hold the deeds in trust for the old lender and either return them or redeem the mortgage. Banks handle these requests through centralised securities departments, and turnaround varies considerably between lenders. This is very often the single longest wait in the entire remortgage.

If your property is registered in the Land Registry (as most Irish residential property now is), much of the title is available electronically, which helps. But the deeds packet can still contain documents the new lender will want to see, such as planning documents and certificates of compliance.

Step 3 — Investigating and certifying title

Irish residential lending runs on the certificate of title system agreed between the Law Society and the lending institutions. Instead of the bank's own solicitors investigating your title, your solicitor investigates it and certifies to the lender that it is good and marketable. That certificate is a serious professional undertaking, so the investigation is genuinely done, not rubber-stamped.

Typical checks include: the folio and title plan, planning and building control status for any extensions or alterations, compliance with conditions in the original title, rights of way and services, Local Property Tax status, family home issues under the Family Home Protection Act 1976, and any judgment mortgages or second charges registered against the property. Problems found here are dealt with under our guide to title issues.

Step 4 — Signing: mortgage deed, declarations and insurance

Once title is in order, you sign the new mortgage deed and supporting documents. Depending on your circumstances these can include a family home declaration or consent, a marital or civil status declaration, and confirmations about occupancy. Signatures on the mortgage deed must generally be witnessed, and your solicitor will arrange signing in the way that suits you.

Two insurance items must also be in place before drawdown: mortgage protection life cover (required for most home loans under the Consumer Credit Act 1995, with limited exceptions), assigned or noted in favour of the new lender, and home insurance with the lender's interest noted. Arranging these late is a classic avoidable delay — start them as soon as the loan offer issues.

Step 5 — Redemption figures and undertakings

Your solicitor requests a redemption figure from your current lender: the exact amount required to clear the loan on a given day, including any accrued interest and, on some fixed rates, a break funding fee. Redemption figures have a shelf life, with a daily rate of interest quoted for a period after the quotation date, so they are ordered to line up with the expected drawdown date.

To draw down the new loan, your solicitor gives the new lender a solicitor's undertaking: in essence, to use the funds to redeem the old mortgage, to ensure the new mortgage is a first legal charge, and to register it. The whole system of same-week remortgage completions rests on these undertakings, which is one reason lenders insist a solicitor be involved at all.

Step 6 — Drawdown, redemption and release

On completion day the new lender transfers the loan cheque or funds to your solicitor, who immediately redeems the old mortgage. Any surplus (in an equity release) is paid to you; any shortfall must be lodged by you before completion.

The old lender then issues its release or discharge. For Land Registry property this is usually an eDischarge or a deed of discharge, which removes its charge from the folio.

Step 7 — Registration and closing the file

Your solicitor registers the new mortgage as a charge on the folio in Tailte Éireann (the Land Registry), pays the registration fee from the outlays you provided, and confirms registration to the new lender. Registration itself can take time depending on Land Registry workloads, but it does not delay your switch — the loan has already drawn down on the strength of the undertaking.

Finally the certificate of title is completed and lodged with the new lender along with the deeds it requires, and you receive a closing statement accounting for every euro that moved through the transaction.

Frequently asked questions

Related pages

• How long a remortgage takes
• Remortgage costs and fees
• Redeeming your existing mortgage
• Title issues that delay remortgages
• Remortgage Readiness Checker