Remortgaging with an Islamic mortgage
Yes, you can. Every current owner-occupied proposition in our register that accepts UK residents publishes a refinance route, subject to its own criteria, and of the UK-resident ranges we checked, only Gatehouse Bank publishes separate refinance products. Two things do change: it is a full application rather than a transfer of your existing deal, and with one provider the amount you can refinance stops lower than the amount you could have bought with.
How to read this page
- The routes describe the co-ownership home purchase plans of Gatehouse Bank, Offa and StrideUp. Kuwait Finance House PLC appears in the tables because it finances UK owner-occupiers, through an ijara and a commodity murabaha that is not co-ownership; the structures guide explains the difference.
- Every figure is read from the providers' own documents on 9 October 2026 and derived from the rate record. Where a provider's sources disagree, both are shown.
- Charges attach to products, not providers: read the scale on the plan you actually hold.
- Tax relief is conditional on the statutory tests. We report the published guidance; confirm your position with your conveyancer.
Refinancing onto a home purchase plan is an application, not a transfer
A conventional remortgage replaces one secured loan with another while you keep legal ownership. A co-ownership home purchase plan is different: the provider acquires an interest in the property, redeems what you owe, and starts a new arrangement with you. Nothing about your current deal carries across. The new provider assesses you and values the home from scratch, and the equity you have built is what lowers the finance you need. The deposit guide sets out what each tier costs.
"Remortgage" means three different transactions
They get discussed as one thing and they are not. The answer to "can I remortgage" depends on which of these you mean, and the third one is not a remortgage at all.
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Route one
From a conventional mortgage
You own the home with a conventional mortgage and want to move it onto a home purchase plan. The provider buys a share of your property, your mortgage is redeemed out of that money, and you start paying rent on the provider's share plus acquisition payments to buy it back.
What it takes. A full new application. The provider reassesses affordability, the property and the finance-to-value tier you land in once it values the home. Refinance-specific rules can still differ from the purchase criteria, including the ceilings and timing rules below.
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Route two
From one home purchase plan to another
You already have a plan and want a different provider. Your current provider's share is bought out by the new one, and the arrangement starts again with the new provider.
What it takes. Also a full application. Your existing product terms and your current approval do not carry across: the new provider applies its own criteria to you and to the property, and your existing plan may carry a settlement charge on the way out.
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Route three
Switching rate with the provider you already have
You stay where you are and move to a different product at the end of your fixed period. Gatehouse calls this a product switch and runs it separately from a refinance application, with its own product range.
What it takes. Gatehouse publishes eligibility for its online self-service portal: fewer than four months left on your fixed product or already on the variable rate, no advice required, and no intended change to the terms of the finance. Those are conditions for using the portal rather than conditions on switching itself, and the bank says customers who want advice can be put through to its qualified advisers instead. Additional finance or a material change puts you back into a full refinance application.
Gatehouse waives its early redemption charge for qualifying internal switches. Leaving for another provider is governed by the charge on your existing product. So the cost of staying can differ from the cost of leaving before you have compared a single rental rate. Its switch window is published 5 times, as 3 or 4 months, and not identically.
The switch window, as Gatehouse publishes it, and the documents
- 4 months Portal eligibility requires less than 4 months remaining on the existing fixed term product, or already being on a variable rate.
- 4 months On a fixed rate you can switch to a new product up to 4 months before your current product expires and the bank will waive any applicable early redemption charge.
- 3 months No early redemption charges if within the last 3 months of your current fixed rate.
- no window You can still switch earlier than that, but not through the portal, and early redemption charges may apply.
- 3 months The HPP product transfer range is only available to existing finance customers whose current product is maturing within the next 3 months.
The portal has an eligibility window, the early redemption charge waiver its own stated window, a summary line on the same page a shorter one, and the intermediary range a shorter one again. Switching earlier is possible, just not through the portal. We have not established how they fit together, and the difference is not explained by channel, because the consumer page carries both figures itself.
Gatehouse Bank, product switch, consumer channel and HPP product transfers, intermediary channel, read .
How much of your home you can refinance
Providers do not always publish the same ceiling for refinancing as for buying. Across the four provider families open to UK residents in our register, one caps refinancing below its purchase ceiling.
| Provider | Maximum on a purchase | Maximum on a refinance | Same? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Offa England and Wales | 95% | 95% | Same |
| Gatehouse Bank England and Wales | 95% | 90% | Lower by 5 points |
| StrideUp England | 85% or 90% | 85% or 90% | Overall ceiling unresolved |
| Kuwait Finance House PLC London, Home Counties, Manchester, Milton Keynes; other England case-by-case | 70% | 70% | Same |
The thing worth noticing
Gatehouse Bank publishes its top tier for purchase only, so refinancing there stops at 90%. Of the ranges with a settled published ceiling, only Offa reaches 95% on a refinance.
The other settled ceilings match their own purchase ceilings, which is not the same as being an alternative: a provider that stops at 70% is no help to you at 95%. If your equity is thin, the provider with the higher headline rate may be the only one open to you, and the cheaper one is not a choice you have.
Your refinance tier is the finance you need divided by the provider's current valuation, not your original price or deposit. A home that has risen in value, or a balance you have paid down, both move you down a tier.
Why one provider carries no single figure, and where the ceilings come from
StrideUp. On its own sources, the provider publishes 85% and 90% and we have not established which governs, so we hold both and treat neither as governing. The unresolved part is the overall ceiling, not the transaction type.
Purchase-only products in the current range: 4, all at 95%, marked available for home purchase only on the provider's own product page. Ceilings derived from 49 UK-resident products in the rate record, checked .
Price a switch on your own figures, fees included
How soon after buying can you refinance
The two providers for which we found published timing criteria both use six months, and they use it for different jobs. For StrideUp it is a minimum. For Gatehouse it is a threshold for extra scrutiny, with an earlier refinance still considered.
- StrideUp
- A refinance is accepted where the property was last purchased or remortgaged at least six months ago, unless you are remortgaging out of bridge finance.
- Gatehouse Bank
- A day-one refinance is considered, subject to enhanced underwriting checks. Above 80% finance-to-value the wording is that a refinance within six months of purchase may be allowed, again subject to enhanced checks. So the six months is a trigger for more scrutiny rather than a bar.
We did not find an equivalent published rule for Offa, so we do not state one.
StrideUp HPP criteria, intermediary channel and the Gatehouse criteria guides above, read .
Most UK-resident ranges we checked do not publish separate refinance pricing
Conventional lenders often price remortgages separately. In the UK-resident ranges we checked on 9 October 2026, Gatehouse Bank publishes 8 refinance-only products, at the same rate or up to 0.1 points higher than the matching purchase product and £648 less in fees. Everywhere else, refinance is a flag on the same product, at the same price. Nomo by BLME also prices refinancing as its own product, for GCC residents rather than UK ones.
What this means for a comparison
First establish which products permit a refinance at your finance-to-value, then compare rates and fees on those. Availability decides more here than price does.
What you are allowed to refinance for
A remortgage is often about raising money as well as changing provider, and that is where a published rule can stop you. StrideUp states that capital-raising refinance is accepted, without publishing which purposes are excluded. Gatehouse Bank publishes the most detailed purpose-by-purpose list we found, and it is specific.
- Not acceptable
- Debt consolidation, and capital raising to pay business debts, tax liabilities or gambling debts. The exclusion is stated at both tiers of the criteria.
- Acceptable, named in the guide
- Repayment of secured property finance, a pound-for-pound refinance from your existing provider, home improvements, paying off Help to Buy, capital raising for property investment or development, and raising a deposit for a second property, a buy-to-let or a holiday home, though not a timeshare.
- Where the ceiling drops
- Refinancing a property you own outright is limited to 80% rather than the 90% available on an ordinary refinance. Between 80% and 90% it is considered by referral only. Refinancing within six months of buying is considered, subject to enhanced underwriting checks.
This is Gatehouse Bank's rulebook, not the market's. StrideUp accepts capital raising without publishing a list, and Offa's criteria guide accepts capital raising, excluding tax and gambling.
The criteria documents
Home Purchase Plan Criteria, finance up to 80% finance-to-value and finance above 80% finance-to-value, effective and , read .
Property transaction tax when you refinance onto a home purchase plan
A provider acquiring an interest in a home you already own looks like a taxable land transaction. Qualifying alternative property finance arrangements are relieved from it where the statutory conditions are met, and the refinance case is expressly covered. Both regimes relieve the transaction where the seller is you, the route from a conventional mortgage, and where the seller is a financial institution that already held the property under the same arrangement with you, the route from one plan to another.
- England and Northern Ireland
- Stamp duty land tax, with alternative property finance relief. For the refinance case HMRC is specific about the comparator: where the conditions are met, the stamp duty land tax consequences are the same as for a conventional remortgage. Not the same as for a purchase, which is the comparator its guidance uses for a first purchase.
- Wales
- Wales has not used stamp duty land tax since 2018. It uses land transaction tax, and Schedule 10 of the 2017 Act provides its own alternative property finance relief. The Welsh guidance draws the same distinction: if the seller is the person, or a financial institution which already held the property under those arrangements with the person, the initial purchase is also relieved. This matters here because Gatehouse Bank and Offa both publish England and Wales.
Ask your conveyancer to confirm the treatment in writing before you commit. The conditions differ between the two regimes, and we are not tax advisers.
Which structures the relief covers, Scotland, and the HMRC and Welsh guidance
The relief above concerns the lease and co-ownership arrangements used by the home purchase plans in this comparison. Kuwait Finance House PLC's commodity murabaha is structurally different: the bank publishes it as first-charge finance, taking a legal charge while you keep registered ownership, rather than buying the property and selling it back. We have not established the land-tax mechanics of that structure to the same standard, so we do not read the relief across to it. Scotland uses land and buildings transaction tax; none of the UK-resident families on this page publishes Scottish owner-occupied finance, so we have not researched it.
HMRC, SDLTM28100, FA03/S71A, SDLTM28005 and Welsh Government, land transaction tax alternative property finance reliefs, read .
What refinancing actually costs
What happens if you do nothing when the fixed period ends
Switching costs have two sides: leaving your existing arrangement, and setting up the new one. Which side dominates depends on where you are in your current deal. Inside a fixed period an early settlement charge on the outstanding balance can be the largest single number. Outside one there may be no percentage exit charge at all, so setup costs and any remaining settlement, legal or administration charges become more important.
| Provider | Variable or discounted | Two-year fixed | Five-year fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gatehouse Bank | No product of this shape | 2% year 1; 1% year 2 | 3%,3%,2%,2%,1% |
| Offa | No early payment charge | 2%, 1% | 5%,4%,3%,2%,1% |
| Kuwait Finance House PLC | No early payment charge | No product of this shape | 5%,4%,3%,2%,1% |
| StrideUp | No product of this shape | Charge applies, See offer and tariff | Charge applies, See offer and tariff |
No product of a given shape is not the same as no charge, and a charge we could not establish is not zero. Then add the new provider's setup costs: Gatehouse Bank publishes separate product and application fees, Kuwait Finance House PLC a percentage application fee. The calculator prices the new product on its real published fees; it does not model the cost of leaving your existing one.
Why no early payment charge is not the same as leaving for free
Kuwait Finance House PLC publishes no early payment charge on its variable rate commodity murabaha, and states separately that there will be no discount for early settlement of the deferred sale price. Legal and administration fees may also apply. Whether a charge is levied and how the settlement amount is calculated are two different questions, and on this product the provider answers them differently. On a co-ownership plan, settling early means buying out the provider's remaining share.
The timing question nobody publishes for you
A settlement charge that falls away next year, set against a saving that starts now, is arithmetic with a date in it. Work out what the charge costs today and how long the monthly difference takes to recover it. That is a break-even under today's pricing, not a prediction of what will exist when the charge expires.
What we could not verify
Three things the published documents leave open, with what we read and did not find.
The three open questions
- Gatehouse's existing-customer range is published, and we have not modelled it. Its product-switch page says only that a fee may apply, but its existing-customer product page publishes rates, tiers, product fees and settlement charges. That range is not in our canonical rate record, so we do not compare switch pricing against new-business refinance pricing on this page. Not unpriced: unmodelled.
- Capital raising, purpose by purpose. Gatehouse publishes what it will and will not refinance for, set out above. StrideUp states that capital raising is accepted but publishes no equivalent list of permitted and excluded uses; Offa's criteria guide accepts capital raising and excludes only tax and gambling. We do not read Gatehouse's permitted or excluded purposes across to either of them.
- Porting, for one of the three. StrideUp states plainly that its products are not portable, and Offa's criteria guide lists portability among its exclusions. We have not verified an equivalent published position for Gatehouse Bank, so we do not infer one. One provider's published answer does not disappear because another is silent.
Where to start
Check the ceiling before you check the rate. Work out roughly what your home is worth and what you would need to finance, find the tier that puts you in, and only then compare what is available at that tier for a refinance. A cheaper rate you cannot reach is not a saving.
Check the published criteria See current rates Ask an adviser your question
Tell us what the published data could not answer
Everything above comes from what providers publish. Whether a provider will actually take you depends on affordability, credit history and the property itself, and on criteria nobody prints. Tell us what you are stuck on and we will come back to you.
Whether switching is worth it on your numbers depends on settlement figures and criteria that are not fully published.
Common questions
- Can you remortgage onto an Islamic mortgage?
- Yes. Every current owner-occupied proposition in our register that accepts UK residents publishes a refinance route, subject to its criteria, which can include finance-to-value, geography, time since purchase, purpose and full underwriting. It is a full application rather than a transfer, so the provider assesses you and the property from scratch.
- Do you pay stamp duty again when you remortgage onto a home purchase plan?
- Not where the statutory relief applies. In England and Northern Ireland, alternative property finance relief from stamp duty land tax covers the refinance case, and HMRC states the consequences are the same as for a conventional remortgage. Wales has its own equivalent relief under land transaction tax. Relief is conditional, so confirm it with your conveyancer.
- Is an Islamic remortgage more expensive than an Islamic purchase?
- Not usually. In the UK-resident ranges we checked on 9 October 2026, Gatehouse Bank publishes 8 refinance-only products, at the same rate or up to 0.1 points higher than the matching purchase product and £648 less in fees. Everywhere else refinance is a flag on the same product at the same price. The ceiling differs. Gatehouse publishes its 95% tier for purchase only, so refinancing there stops at 90%, while Offa publishes 95% for both.
- What does it cost to switch from one Islamic mortgage provider to another?
- Inside a fixed period, the early settlement charge on your outstanding balance is usually the largest number; outside one there may be no percentage charge. Then add the new provider's product fee, application fee, valuation and legal costs. Our rate pages carry the published fees.