If you are not and you don't want to risk the capital the simple answer is pay down the loan.

Sion: Had to pay penalties

Sion Jones from Windsor discovered his portable mortgage wasn't as portable as he had hoped.

When he took out a self-certified mortgage with GMAC Residential, he was told he could transfer without paying any penalties.

Click here to find out more about Sion's case.

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However, when the time came, he found GMAC had sold its loans on to E-Mex Home Funding, a subsidiary of the Cheshire Building Society. It didn't provide mortgages, let alone self-certified ones.

In the end he had to pay £3,500 in penalties to get a suitable new loan. How can this situation have happened?

The problem here is that the company he took his mortgage out with transferred the business to a new lender.

As long as he keeps the mortgage unchanged there's nothing they can do to change the terms and conditions.

But if he wants to alter anything or borrow more money, he becomes subject to the new lender's conditions.

It's good advice when taking out a mortgage to ensure any penalties will expire before you want to consider moving.

Peter Baker from Worthing in Sussex says he took out a shared appreciation mortgage and is unhappy with the amount of money the bank demanded from him when he decided to remortgage.

Are such mortgages completely legal or at the very least ethical?

These mortgages were operated by Bank of Scotland and Barclays. They worked on the basis of you being given an interest-free loan for life, in return for signing away a large part of the future increase in your home's value (typically a three-to-one share).

Because property prices have risen so sharply it looks to many as if they are paying a huge price for the interest-only loan.

But that was always the risk they were taking and if property prices had remained stagnant and the banks had a zero profit then the borrower would not complain.

Both lenders insisted that all borrowers taking this type of mortgage sought separate independent legal advice to ensure that they knew the nature of the product before taking it, so it is difficult to see that there is room for arguing the legality or morality of them.

A viewer from Leicestershire says her husband left her in February and she's continued to pay the mortgage on their house.

But he's now saying because he doesn't live there he shouldn't pay the mortgage and wants to be removed from it. What can she do?

He is jointly liable for the mortgage payments and in the event that they are not made he will be damaging his own credit rating as well as hers.

If your income is sufficient to cover the mortgage payments you may be able to get the lender to remove him from the mortgage.

But clearly this is a situation where you really need to be seeking expert legal advice from a lawyer who specialises in matrimonial break-ups.

Briege O'Meara from Gloucestershire recently applied for a redemption figure for a £120,000 mortgage and found it would be £128,000 - including a near £5,000 redemption fee! Isn't this a bit excessive?

Redemption penalties will often account for somewhere in the region of six months' interest or 5% of the mortgage balance.

This penalty equates to 4% of the loan so it seems to be in the right ball park. However you should double check the figure against the penalty clause that would have been included in the lender's original mortgage offer to you.

Darren Pryke is about to take out a mortgage but says all the best rates seem to be going up. Since the Bank of England base rate has't changed, why is this?

Money markets are anticipating that interest rates over the next few years will be slightly higher than now.

Given this, the rate that the markets charge lenders to borrow fixed rates has risen and the lenders have simply passed this rise on through their new business products.

Variable rates, however, have not been affected. To give you an idea, the Bank of England base rate is 3.5% - but lenders would borrow a two-year fixed rate from the money markets at about 4.3%.

Emma Bonham has the DSS paying the interest on her mortgage because she's getting the Jobseekers' Allowance.

She wants to remortgage to a lower fixed rate because she expects to be paying the interest herself in the longer term. Will the DSS stop paying the interest if she switches the mortgage?

No, they shouldn't. But she does need to make sure that her present mortgage was not taken out before 1 October 1995, as the interest support payments for loans taken after that date are not as generous as for loans taken before it.

Most lenders will only consider taking on a remortgage where the mortgage payments are being met out of monthly earned income.

So it's unlikely that the remortgage deals that you see in the press would be open to someone receiving DSS support.

Mr Connor says his capped mortgage promised he would benefit from any reduction in the bank base rate.

But when the Bank of England cut rates by 0.25% in the spring, his mortgage rate only went down by 0.1 percent. Another quarter point cut was followed by no reduction in his mortgage rate. Isn't this a bit unfair?

With a capped mortgage, as rates fall (below the cap) the reduction should be passed on to the borrower. It is likely that this mortgage is linked to the lender's standard variable rate - not the Bank of England base rate.

When rates were last cut the lender simply chose not to reduce its own rate. A way out of this, of course, is to take a mortgage that is linked directly to the Bank of England base rate.

Sean Creegan is about to move his mortgage to a fixed rate. He'd like to know if he should opt for a really long-term fix - and if so, what are the pitfalls?

You have to watch out for redemption penalties on long-term fixes - if you wanted to repay the mortgage it could be costly.

Also beware of relying on a product being portable should you want to move house. The lender might not be able to help you with the new mortgage you require and you could end up having to pay the penalty.

The other consideration is cost - the best 25-year fixed rate mortgage is 5.48% with the Cheshire, whereas you can get a five-year fixed from Coventry at a far lower 4.39%.

James from London says he was in Copenhagen, where there appears to be a big demand for rented property. What's the best way of getting a buy-to-let mortgage on one of these properties via a UK lender?

You can't - unless you raise the money against another property you own in the UK.

If this is not the case seek out local advice in the foreign country where you are purchasing the property.

Also, make sure you take good legal and taxation advice to ensure you don't suffer any horrors later.

Stephen Marsh is a 23-year-old student who's desperate to get on the property ladder. He's decided to buy a house in Newcastle with his girlfriend to rent out and wants to know if there are any mortgages that will allow you to rent out the property but not put up a big deposit.

In short, no - the minimum downpayment for a buy-to-let mortgage is 15%, although most lenders require an even higher deposit of 25%.

In addition, lenders will generally require the borrower to have a minimum income (typically £15,000) as they want to ensure the mortgage payments can be met in periods where there is no tenant in place.

Also trying to get on the property ladder are Geoff and Nikki from Essex. They can't afford anything locally and the council say it could be years before they get a council house. Is there anything mum Sue can do with the equity tied up in her own house to guarantee a mortgage loan for Geoff and Nikki?

Equity is not really the issue. Mortgage lenders are more interested in affordability - i.e income. As such if Mum's income together with Geoff and Nikki's is enough to cover a new mortgage, then this should be straightforward to arrange.

Of course Mum should remember that if she guarantees their mortgage she would become liable for it if they didn't keep up the monthly payments.