Together

Together is a specialist UK lender that provides mortgages, secured homeowner loans, bridging finance and buy-to-let lending, largely to borrowers and situations that mainstream high street banks tend to decline. It describes its lending as covering people who want to own, extend or move home, grow a business or property portfolio, develop land or renovate property¹. It is a lender rather than a bank: it does not offer current accounts, savings or credit cards, and its loans are almost always secured against property.

The brand is best known for saying yes where others say no: the self-employed with a short trading history, older borrowers, landlords with large portfolios, and applicants with missed payments, county court judgments or defaults in their past². That flexibility comes with trade-offs a borrower needs to understand before signing anything. Together's loans are secured on your home or other property, which means the stakes are high if repayments become unaffordable, and some of its lending sits outside the main protections that cover most mortgages and secured loans.

What Together lends: mortgages, secured loans and bridging finance

Together's range falls into four broad groups, all secured against property. The first is personal mortgages for homes, which it offers on a repayment or interest-only basis, with terms of up to 40 years, and on non-standard properties such as concrete or timber construction that many mainstream lenders will not touch². It also accepts gifted deposits from close relatives and allows joint borrower, sole proprietor arrangements, where a parent or family member helps the application without going on the property's title². If you are weighing a mortgage generally, our mortgages guide explains the types and how they compare.

The second group is secured homeowner loans, sometimes called second-charge loans: a separate loan that sits behind your existing mortgage, using the equity in your home as security. Together says these can be used for home improvements, debt consolidation or a large purchase⁷. Unlike some lenders, it also offers secured loans on buy-to-let properties⁷. Because the loan is secured, the consequences of missing payments are the same as with a mortgage: your property might be repossessed if you fall behind⁷. Our loans guide sets out how secured and unsecured lending differ.

Third is short-term lending: bridging loans, which are used to bridge a gap, most often between buying one property and selling another, or to buy at auction before a long-term mortgage is arranged. Which? lists Together Mortgages among the providers that offer bridging loans in the UK, alongside names such as Precise Mortgages and United Trust Bank⁸. Together's auction finance is a form of bridging aimed at auction purchases, available to both individuals and limited companies, with desktop valuations, no lender legal fees, and up to 12 months to repay⁹.

Fourth is buy-to-let and commercial lending. Together offers buy-to-let mortgages, including for landlords with adverse credit, and portfolio buy-to-let mortgages secured against all of your properties at the same time, with no strict limit on how many buy-to-let mortgages you can hold and no minimum income requirement¹⁰. It also lends on business premises and investment properties, and can lend on properties that already have mortgages on them¹¹.

Finally, Together has a later life lending range: secured loans and mortgages designed for older borrowers, on homes, business premises and investment properties, with retired applicants welcome¹¹.

Who Together lends to: self-employed, retired and imperfect credit applicants

Together's whole business is built around applicants the high street finds difficult, and it groups them into three main camps.

The self-employed are one. Most banks and lenders treat you as self-employed if you own more than 20% of the business that is your main source of income¹². Where most lenders want two to three years of trading history, Together asks for only one year, provided you can show you can afford the repayments¹². It is also flexible on how your income is measured: sole traders can use net profit from accounts or total income from an SA302 tax calculation; partnerships use your share of those figures; and limited company directors can use salary, dividends or sometimes retained profits¹². If your application is accepted, Together states you get the same rates as an employed applicant¹².

Retired and older borrowers are another. On standard secured loans, Together's maximum age is 80 at the end of the term⁷. Its later life mortgages go further: you can apply up to age 85, and be up to 85 at the end of the term¹¹. It counts 100% of pension income for affordability, along with investments, rental income and wages from part-time work including zero-hours contracts, though income from employment can only be used up to age 70¹¹. If you are 10 years or more from your agreed retirement age, or aged 56 or over at application, you will need to confirm you understand the loan extends past your retirement age and explain how you plan to repay once retired¹¹.

The third camp is borrowers with imperfect credit. Together accepts imperfect credit on personal mortgages², offers buy-to-let mortgages specifically for landlords with bad credit⁴, and can review credit profiles without a credit search, case by case¹². Its adverse credit policy has defined exclusions: missed payments on personal loans, credit cards and mobile phone bills can be ignored, as can all county court judgments and defaults under £300, and any under £3,000 that have been satisfied⁴. Adverse credit over 12 months old can also be ignored when deciding the interest rate, though this excludes debt management plans, individual voluntary arrangements and bankruptcy⁷. If your credit file is the reason you are looking at specialist lenders, our credit scores guide explains what lenders see and how to check your file.

How Together checks income and affordability

Together's affordability approach is deliberately broader than a high street bank's. On personal mortgages it accepts a variety of income sources and can factor in benefit income as part of its affordability checks¹³. On later life mortgages it takes up to 100% of pension income, plus investments, rental income and part-time wages¹¹.

On buy-to-let, the method is different. Together assesses affordability by looking at the interest coverage ratio (ICR): the ratio of the property's gross rental income to the mortgage interest repayments¹⁰. It looks at all of your income, including up to 90% of projected rent from the property being financed, rent from other properties you own, pension income and salary¹⁰. There are no minimum income requirements on its buy-to-let mortgages, and it will consider applications from first-time buyers, treating them the same as anyone else, with no previous landlord experience needed¹⁰. For landlords with complex arrangements, Together says it can accept most complex and multiple income sources¹.

Two things are worth knowing about how the decision is made. First, Together says an underwriter, not a computer, makes the final decision every time², which is what allows it to weigh unusual circumstances individually. Second, the rate you are offered is influenced by how much you need to borrow in total and as a percentage of your property's value, the type of mortgage, and your credit history, though not your credit score².

Fixed or variable: how Together's interest rates work

On its personal mortgages, Together offers a choice: a fixed rate for a set period at the start of the mortgage, or a variable-rate option for the whole duration². A fixed rate gives certainty that your monthly payment will not change during the fixed period; a variable rate can move up or down at any point, which suits some borrowers and exposes others.

For variable-rate borrowers, the key thing to understand is the Together Homeowner Managed Rate, or THMR. Together describes THMR as a variable interest rate set by the lender itself⁶, rather than tracking an external rate such as the Bank of England base rate. That means the rate you pay can change when Together decides to change it, based on its own costs of funds.

There are rules around how and when changes happen. Together will write to you at least 28 days before making any change to your interest rate when the change is driven by its costs of funds⁶. For its Bank of England-linked mortgages, the position is different: when the base rate increases or decreases, Together will change the interest it charges by the same amount, and will write to you within 14 days of the rate being changed⁶. So a borrower needs to know which kind of loan they hold, because the notice and the pass-through of rate movements differ between them.

How Together's fees and charges work

Together does not publish a single flat fee schedule on its product pages; instead, charges depend on the product and the loan. What it does set out is the shape of its charging structure, and the figures for any specific quote come from Together directly.

On personal mortgages, Together charges a Lender's Arrangement Fee and a Redemption Administration Fee, the latter charged when you redeem the loan, meaning repay it in full². Its moving home mortgage pages show the arrangement fee as part of a representative example, so you can see the fee alongside the loan before committing¹³. On auction finance, the structure is different again: there are no lender legal fees on that product⁹.

Because fees vary by product, the practical steps are to ask for a written illustration that lists every fee, to check which are payable upfront and which are added to the loan (added fees attract interest too), and to ask specifically what the Redemption Administration Fee would be if you repaid early. A fee added to the loan and repaid over a long term costs more than the headline figure suggests.

Applying to Together: quotes, documents and valuations

Together's application process starts with a quote, which it can produce quickly: it aims to send the offer in principle out on the same day as your application, and to send the formal offer to your solicitor within a week if it has everything it needs⁴.

The documents it asks for are fairly standard. Together lists an application form, income information such as payslips or tax returns, and a company structure form if you are applying in a company name⁴. Self-employed applicants may be asked for an accountant's certificate, an SA302 form, a tax year overview from HMRC and business bank statements¹². There are extra rules for the self-employed: each tax calculation must represent two full business years, and an accountant's certificate is required if you have not been self-employed for two years¹². Later life borrowers planning to repay from pension income will be asked for payslips showing pension contributions or the current year's pension statement¹¹.

On valuations, Together is flexible about method. It can accept automated valuations, which use data from a range of existing databases rather than a physical inspection by a surveyor², and automated valuations are also available on its moving home mortgages¹³. Its auction finance uses desktop valuations⁹. An automated or desktop valuation is faster and cheaper, but it means no one has physically inspected the property, so it is still worth commissioning your own survey before buying.

Managing a Together loan: payments, refixing and paying off early

Day to day, a Together loan is managed by phone, post or email. There is no online system for customers to access their account information, as Together confirms directly⁵, so anything from changing a direct debit to requesting a statement means contacting it. Its phone lines are open 09:00 to 20:00 Monday to Thursday and 09:00 to 17:30 on Friday⁴.

If your fixed period is ending, Together makes a specific promise to existing customers: the rate offered to you when you refix will never be higher than the rate it would offer a new customer on the same product at the same time². That is a meaningful safeguard, because on the high street loyal customers have often been moved onto worse deals than new applicants. It is still worth checking what else is available, since a rate no higher than a new customer's rate is only good value if the product itself is competitive.

If you want to pay the loan off early, ask Together for a settlement or redemption figure, which will include the Redemption Administration Fee². Be aware that early repayment charges may apply depending on your product and how far through any fixed or discounted period you are; the settlement figure will show the total. If you are moving home, note that Together mortgages do not port in the conventional sense: Together says it would need your existing mortgage to be paid off and for you to apply for a new one¹³, so a move means an early repayment charge on the old loan and a fresh application for the new. By contrast, on lifetime mortgages the Equity Release Council confirms switching is possible, either to a different scheme with your existing provider or to another provider altogether, and should be done with a suitably qualified adviser¹⁴.

Together was formerly Blemain, Cheshire Mortgage Corporation and other names

If you have paperwork or a credit file entry naming Blemain Finance, Cheshire Mortgage Corporation, Lancashire Corporation, Auction Finance, Spot Finance or Bridging Finance, those are Together's former names. Until 2015 the business used several different names simultaneously, and it then unified everything under a single brand name, Together, to make things easier for customers⁵. The authorised firm behind the brand was previously named Cheshire Mortgage Corporation Limited and now trades as Together³, and Companies House records that company as active, incorporated on 22 May 1991¹⁵.

This matters in practice for two reasons. First, if you are disputing an old loan or searching for a complaint route, the paperwork may predate the rebrand, but the obligations passed to the same firm. Second, credit file entries under old names can look unfamiliar; knowing the connection helps you identify what the debt is.

If you fall behind with Together: support and repossession risk

The single most important fact on this page is the warning Together itself attaches to its mortgages and secured loans:

Together, on its mortgage and secured loan pages⁶

The same applies to secured loans: as with a mortgage, your property might be repossessed if you fall behind with payments⁷. This is not boilerplate. A secured loan puts your home at risk in exactly the way a mortgage does, and a second charge means the first mortgage lender and Together both have claims on the property.

If your income drops or you cannot make a payment, contact Together before you miss one rather than after. Free, independent debt advice is available from charities such as StepChange and National Debtline, and working out exactly what you owe across all your debts is the recommended first step¹⁶. If you make a reduced offer of payment that Together refuses, you have rights: under the Consumer Credit Act 2006 you can complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service about how your lender has handled your account, including the treatment of refused offers¹⁷.

Complaints and how borrowers are protected

Complaining about Together follows the standard route for financial firms. First talk to the lender or broker, because they need to have the chance to put things right; then make a formal complaint to Together; and after its final response, if you are still unhappy, take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service¹⁸. The ombudsman can look at complaints from individual customers and from customers who share a financial product, such as a joint mortgage¹⁹, and it covers complaints about debts that fall under the Consumer Credit Act, including mortgages and secured lending²⁰. If you complain via a credit broker, the rules require the broker to forward the complaint to the lender and tell you it has done so²¹.

Where money is borrowed under a linked credit agreement to buy goods or services, and the supplier is in breach of contract, the Consumer Credit Act 1974 allows the debtor to pursue that claim against the creditor where certain conditions are met²². If someone holds power of attorney for a Together borrower, the ombudsman can accept a complaint from attorneys: where they are appointed jointly and severally, one or more of them can bring the complaint, but where they are appointed jointly, all the attorneys must bring it²³.

Two limits on protection matter. First, Together states plainly that loans covering some buy-to-let and auction finance are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority⁴, so check your loan agreement to see which part of the business is lending. Second, if a borrower dies, the rules require the lender to take all reasonable steps to communicate with the personal representative of the estate or its beneficiaries instead²⁴, but joint debts do not go away: the surviving person becomes responsible for repaying the full amount²⁵, and in England and Wales the survivor is liable for joint debts²⁶. Free help with complaints and debts is available from StepChange, National Debtline and the ombudsman itself.