Spring and early summer are traditionally good times for some home improvements – that long-wished-for patio or vital extra bedroom.

And people who don’t want to move house, but fancy a change to their surroundings, often consider it around now, as the weather improves.

But how do you fund that dream extension, if your savings aren’t too healthy and the lottery refuses to come up?

The answer might be a secured loan. These are particularly useful if your mortgage is tied in to your provider for a while – if it is on a fixed rate deal, for example.

These are proving very popular not only for home improvements but also as a way for parents to help their children.

Say you need £10,000.

You could get a further advance on your mortgage, borrowing money against your home from your current mortgage lender. This would seem appropriate if you are tied into your current lender and would pay a penalty to change it. However, you will have to have this over a minimum of two years and so the end date on your current mortgage and this further advance might be different.

Alternatively, you could consider a secured loan, which is money you borrow that is secured against an asset you own, usually your home. The interest rates tend to be cheaper than with unsecured personal loans because the risk is less for the lender. The downside is that your asset could be at risk if you don’t keep up repayments.

With a secured loan you can come out of the deal at a month’s notice so when the deal ends on your current mortgage you can then remortgage and include the amount left on the secured loan to have just one payment with one end date. You also avoid costly redemption fees.

Of course how much you are able to borrow will depend on a lot of factors – like your credit score, for example – and you have to keep up the payments because your home is up as security.

But for most people a secured loan can be an excellent way to sort out that need for some extra money.

They can be quite complicated and, like so many other financial products, the best thing is to get some proper advice before deciding which loan is best for you.