Making your move as straightforward as possible
Upsizing, downsizing, or relocating. We handle the mortgage side so you can concentrate on everything else a move involves.
Moving home is rarely just a mortgage decision. There is a chain, a deadline, and usually a house you have already emotionally committed to. Our job is to make the finance the part you do not have to worry about.
It is also a natural point to review whether your current deal still suits you. Staying with your existing lender is sometimes right and sometimes expensive, and it is worth knowing which before you decide.
The decision almost every mover gets wrong
Take your mortgage with you
Porting keeps your existing rate on the existing balance and avoids early repayment charges. It is the path of least resistance, and your lender will make it sound like the obvious one. The catch is that any extra borrowing sits on a second, separately priced product, and you are stuck with whatever your current lender offers for it.
Usually right when you are inside a fixed rate with a meaningful charge for leaving.
Move the whole thing elsewhere
Starting again puts the entire balance on one product, priced by whoever is best at that moment rather than by the lender you happen to be with. If your loan to value has improved since you last borrowed, this is often where the money is. It costs you the exit charge, if there is one.
Usually right when your deal is ending anyway, or the charge is smaller than the saving.
What we look at while you look at houses
- Whether porting is genuinely the best option
- Or just the easiest one. They are not always the same, and the difference is usually only visible once you price both properly.
- Borrowing more, or less
- Adjusting the mortgage to suit a bigger home, downsizing plans, or a change in circumstances, and showing you what each option does to the monthly payment.
- What leaving would actually cost
- Early repayment charges, the rate you are on now, and the exit fee. Sometimes staying put is right. We will say so.
- Protection, while everything is open
- A bigger mortgage usually means the cover you set up last time no longer fits. Cheaper to review it now than to discover it three years later.
Where the mortgage sits in a move
- Before you view
Agreement in principle
Establishes what you can offer on. Estate agents take offers from buyers who have one considerably more seriously, particularly in a chain.
- Offer accepted
Full application goes in
This is where having decided between porting and switching in advance saves a fortnight, because the decision is already made.
- Two to three weeks in
Valuation and offer
The lender values the property and issues the formal offer. If the valuation comes in low, this is the point at which it matters.
- Exchange
The chain commits
Everyone is bound. Your protection needs to be in force from here, not from completion, because this is the point at which you are legally committed.
Staying with your existing lender is sometimes right and sometimes expensive. It is worth knowing which before you decide, not afterwards.
Let's find out where you stand.
One conversation, no cost, and no obligation to go any further. We will tell you honestly what is possible before you commit to anything.