How can we help?

Very few first time buyers will buy a property outright and so use a mortgage to help them buy a home.

A mortgage is a loan secured against a property. Having a mortgage means that you borrow the money to buy your home and you repay this over an agreed period of time, depending on what you can afford.

It's important you choose a repayment schedule that suits your circumstances as your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.

You’ll need to be employed or self-employed to qualify for a mortgage. This will help to ensure you can manage your mortgage repayments in the future.

Read this information about our mortgages to find out about our eligibility criteria including information on how much you could borrow and for how long.

Read this information about our mortgages to find out about our eligibility criteria including information on how much you could borrow and for how long.

We can help you to work out if you can afford the mortgage you need by looking at your household expenditure and any additional financial commitments such as loans, overdrafts, credit and store cards, hire purchase agreements and maintenance payments.

Our calculator will give you an indication of how much you could borrow, or get in touch to arrange an appointment with one of our Mortgage Specialists.

When you take out a mortgage, your lender needs to be sure that you'll be able to pay it back, even if you lose your job, become unwell for a long period or die.

Because of this, lenders will request you buy life cover when you take out your mortgage.

It's important you add up all the costs involved in a mortgage, not just the interest rate. You may need to budget for a valuation fee, search fees, land registry fees and legal costs, as well as stamp duty. Read our guide to buying a home.

To help with these costs, Ulster Bank currently offer a free standard valuation on our new mortgages. Only one free valuation per customer applies. 

We also offer €1,500 towards your legal fees on all new residential and buy to let mortgages.  Mortgage application must be submitted by 30th June 2022.

We expect you to take out buildings insurance to cover damage or rebuilding costs if needed. We also expect you to take out life cover. You may also decide to take out contents insurance along with sickness and unemployment cover, as appropriate.

More about our insurance and protection options

We’ll always complete a valuation of the property for our own purposes which will provided an estimated value and we will share that with you. It will take into consideration the general condition of the property, look for any major faults in accessible parts of the building that may affect the value or indeed any urgent problems that need inspecting by a specialist. The valuation may contain COVID related limitations at this time, but it is always open to you to get your own valuation of the property for added comfort in that regard.

When we’ve received all the required documentation we will make our decision on your application.

If your application is approved we will then send you the mortgage offer documents to read through and sign. We will also send a copy to your solicitor.

Read our step-by-step mortgage guide for more information on the different stages of the process.

Your solicitor will carry out various legal checks on the property to make sure they’re happy. If there are no concerns, they’ll contact us to confirm the start date of the mortgage and when they’ll need the funds to be released. We’ll then send the funds to the solicitor who will complete the transaction.

Once the mortgage is approved we’ll confirm how much your monthly payments will be and on what day of the month they’ll be paid.

Our Agreement in Principle letter tells you whether we could potentially lend you the amount you want to borrow.

When you speak with a Mortgage Specialist, either on the phone or in your local branch and we could let you know within 10 minutes if we could lend to you. We will just need some personal information from you to help with our decision.

Important information

• Please note, an Agreement in Principle letter is not an offer of a loan
• Requesting an Agreement in Principle does not mean that you are committing to apply for a mortgage with us
• Information provided will not be used for any marketing purposes
• Lending criteria, terms and conditions apply
• It is unlikely that we will be able to lend to you if you have ever been declared bankrupt, have had county court judgements against you, your property seized, defaulted on your mortgage, or had to organise a repayment plan with your creditors

Get in touch to talk more about mortgages

Our Mortgage Specialists are available to discuss your mortgage needs and answer any questions you may have.

You can book an appointment with one of our branches or get in touch with our mortgage team on web chat or by phone.

Book an appointment

One of our mortgages specialists will discuss your mortgage requirements and advise on the best option for you. If you wish to proceed with an application they will guide you through the mortgage process.

We've compiled a handy checklist of documents you should bring to your mortgage appointment. If you have any other questions please get in touch.