There are all sorts of loans out there both unsecured and secured and two very popular types of loans are remortgages and secured loans. Both secured loans and remortgages are only granted to those who own the property in which they live as they need to be secured against the equity in the property.
The fact that remortgages and secured loans are safely secured, lenders have more confidence that the customer will repay their borrowings and are therefore prepared to grant remortgages and secured loans at good interest rates.
The interest rates for secured loans and remortgages are normally much lower than that of unsecured loans where the loan lender is taking a greater risk, as if the borrower defaults in repaying, the lender can do little about it apart from taking out a default or CCJ against the borrower, and if the borrower is a homeowner the lender can take out an inhibition which is like a County Court Judgment secured against the property. This inhibition is registered at the Land Registry, and the homeowner cannot sell his property without first paying off the inhibition.
This means that the lender can wait a very long time before the loan is repaid if the borrower remains at the same address for a long time. If the borrower never wants to sell the property the lender may never be repaid.
Therefore the lack of security required for an unsecured loan is what makes their rates higher, and it is stupid for a homeowner to apply for this type of product when remortgages and secured loans are available at low interest rates. It is a great benefit to use your status as a homeowner to borrow money cheaply.
All these problems are what makes unsecured loans more expensive than secured loans and remortgages.As a homeowner requiring to raise funds for almost any purpose the only sensible way to borrow is by means of a remortgage or a secured loan.