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Original poster

Has any taken 3-6 month moratorium on their mortgage at the beginning?

65 replies

Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 15:40

In the process of buying a house and as a part of the mortgage offer, we have been asked whether we’d like to take a moratorium of up to 6 months and our mortgage payments. I’m thinking I’d like to take 3 to 4 months. Just to ease us into being in the house so that we can afford to buy some furniture and bits and pieces, etc. It looks like it will only add on an extra 10 to 20quid to the monthly payment after that. Anyone else on this? posting here for traffic.

OP posts:
BIossomtoes · 10/07/2025 18:24

titchy · 10/07/2025 18:20

At 5% that adds almost £5000 to the total to be repaid.

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Which is fuck all in the context of a mortgage.

titchy · 10/07/2025 18:20

Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 15:49

Doesn’t extend the term.

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At 5% that adds almost £5000 to the total to be repaid.

Original poster
Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 17:52

weathervane1 · 10/07/2025 17:48

I would do it if: I was able to overpay for succeeding months and in effect bring the term of the mortgage down. I know it's not ideal but if you need to buy furniture and you are confident that you can "catch up" by overpaying and reduce the impact of the delay, I think it's worth considering. Only you know if it is affordable. As an example though, we did this with Barclays in the UK (albeit with a £90K deposit which might have helped) and then overpaid to reduce the term from 20 years to just under 15. It worked for us as we had little furniture and the house needed some attention. I accept that it doesn't / won't work for many people. You just have to make decisions that work for you. Just make sure you don't push yourself too close to the wire - you always need wiggle room if anything bad happens.

Yes we had a 100k deposit. It’s our first and last mortgaged home (hopefully) and we want to have it right and done as soon as possible (for our own reasons) we will pay off another chunk by Christmas and will overpay annually from there on.

OP posts:
Original poster
Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 17:50

NeedToChangeName · 10/07/2025 17:45

You'll be paying additional interest on the loan holiday FOR THE REMAINDER OF YOUR MORTGAGE

I'm sure you understand this

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Yes I’m aware of that, we will however have a significant cash injection by Christmas so we will be paying a chunk off our mortgage then too…

OP posts:
weathervane1 · 10/07/2025 17:48

I would do it if: I was able to overpay for succeeding months and in effect bring the term of the mortgage down. I know it's not ideal but if you need to buy furniture and you are confident that you can "catch up" by overpaying and reduce the impact of the delay, I think it's worth considering. Only you know if it is affordable. As an example though, we did this with Barclays in the UK (albeit with a £90K deposit which might have helped) and then overpaid to reduce the term from 20 years to just under 15. It worked for us as we had little furniture and the house needed some attention. I accept that it doesn't / won't work for many people. You just have to make decisions that work for you. Just make sure you don't push yourself too close to the wire - you always need wiggle room if anything bad happens.

NeedToChangeName · 10/07/2025 17:45

Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 15:49

It’s not extra debt as such …it’s just spread across the term. So say initial payments were 1500 they are now 1520

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You'll be paying additional interest on the loan holiday FOR THE REMAINDER OF YOUR MORTGAGE

I'm sure you understand this

Original poster
Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 17:43

Londonrach1 · 10/07/2025 17:40

It really isn't. Be careful here.

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Our offered up to 6 months…we will take 3 we reckon. They will still lend…it doesn’t make us a red flag

OP posts:
Caspianberg · 10/07/2025 17:41

@Londonrach1 no these don’t.
they simply start a few months later. Ours asked us and gave us up to 12 months to start. The 20 years starts then, not the original date. It’s a standard mortgage if your not in uk

Londonrach1 · 10/07/2025 17:40

Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 17:31

The lender offered It!! It’s a standard offering!

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It really isn't. Be careful here.

Original poster
Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 17:31

Londonrach1 · 10/07/2025 17:30

It's a huge no no in the first few months. Why on earth would you do that. It adds 1000s to your mortgage and makes the lender red flag you.

The lender offered It!! It’s a standard offering!

OP posts:
Londonrach1 · 10/07/2025 17:30

It's a huge no no in the first few months. Why on earth would you do that. It adds 1000s to your mortgage and makes the lender red flag you.

DoYouReally · 10/07/2025 17:27

I suspect it's Ireland we're a deferred start or a 11 months payment rather than 12 are regularly available.

A deferred start simply means that you are repaying your mortgage over 3 months less than the original term.

Some people like the option is they have extra moving or furnishing costs.

It does however increase the monthly repayments and it does add to the cost of the mortgage as the interest accumulates for 3 months without any payments.

Financially, slightly silly to avail of it if you can do without but well worth it if you actually need to take it.

Original poster
Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 16:30

SunDash · 10/07/2025 16:28

Personally i'd save the moratorium facility for a real life finance emergency, like losing one's job, or serious illness.

On job loss we would have redundancy at this stage as both permanent contracts. We have critical illness cover too which would cover the mortgage.

OP posts:
Original poster
Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 16:29

GaspingGekko · 10/07/2025 16:24

We took a pause (also not UK), not at the start but due to a bad financial situation about ten years in. It really helped us out short term.
But like others have said, please think through the total of an extra 20 a month for the full term of your mortgage. Is there another way to pay for the things you want, e.g. credit card, short term loan, that won't add so much in total.

I don’t have a credit card. I don’t want apply for one now as it would change things for our application and so would a loan.

OP posts:
SunDash · 10/07/2025 16:28

Personally i'd save the moratorium facility for a real life finance emergency, like losing one's job, or serious illness.

jamanbutter · 10/07/2025 16:28

I would be careful. There is usually a minimum term between taking such breaks. If you are in trouble for payments in a years time, you may find they won’t allow you to have a break.

Original poster
Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 16:25

Caspianberg · 10/07/2025 16:17

We did this, also not uk. It’s pretty common where we live. It’s didn’t add anything as the actual start date starts later also

ie finalised house purchase Sept, didn’t move until Mid Dec, started paying Jan. It meant we could pay rent Sept- Dec in Uk before we moved without double payments. Our mortgage started the Jan, although we legally owned from Sept beforehand

Most people do this here as things like chains on house purchase don’t exist either, so you often buy next house whilst you still own old house. And bank just lets you start 6 months later so you have time to sell old house or finish up old rental contract.

@Caspianberg thank you. That’s pretty much the situation we are in.

OP posts:
GaspingGekko · 10/07/2025 16:24

We took a pause (also not UK), not at the start but due to a bad financial situation about ten years in. It really helped us out short term.
But like others have said, please think through the total of an extra 20 a month for the full term of your mortgage. Is there another way to pay for the things you want, e.g. credit card, short term loan, that won't add so much in total.

Original poster
Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 16:24

2thumbs · 10/07/2025 16:20

Do you have an emergency fund? If not, there is some logic to taking the delay to build up a bit of a buffer. However, if you’d just use it to spend money that you’re planning to spend in any event, albeit sooner, then I wouldn’t bother

Yes we have an emergency fund. We have savings for the dc for university. We just need extra cash to do a few more jobs we would like to do in the house and in that 3 months we could pay for that. We also have another small mortgage on another property to pay as that’s selling. So again it’s just to ease things over three months. Thank you.

OP posts:
2thumbs · 10/07/2025 16:20

Do you have an emergency fund? If not, there is some logic to taking the delay to build up a bit of a buffer. However, if you’d just use it to spend money that you’re planning to spend in any event, albeit sooner, then I wouldn’t bother

Caspianberg · 10/07/2025 16:17

We did this, also not uk. It’s pretty common where we live. It’s didn’t add anything as the actual start date starts later also

ie finalised house purchase Sept, didn’t move until Mid Dec, started paying Jan. It meant we could pay rent Sept- Dec in Uk before we moved without double payments. Our mortgage started the Jan, although we legally owned from Sept beforehand

Most people do this here as things like chains on house purchase don’t exist either, so you often buy next house whilst you still own old house. And bank just lets you start 6 months later so you have time to sell old house or finish up old rental contract.

Original poster
Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 16:12

Digdongdoo · 10/07/2025 16:06

No you don't have to say EXACTLY what it is. But what it is does make a difference in my opinion. But you're not in the UK so maybe your mortgage is much more affordable than an average uk mortgage, in which case most of our opinions will be redundant.

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We’re not a million miles away from the UK to be honest so I assumed wrongly that this was something that might be an option in other countries. I wasn’t aware that this wasn’t an option in the UK thank you. I’ll ask on another more local forum if I can find one.

OP posts:
Original poster
Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 16:11

holachicatita · 10/07/2025 16:06

Everyone on here is so offended by this for some reason. OP go for it if it's what you want. You never know when your circumstances might change and you ought be in the position to overpay on the mortgage.

We are in a position to overpay, just not within the first 6 months of having the house. We are waiting on a cash injection due by Christmas. I wasn’t aware this wasn’t an option in other countries.

OP posts:
Digdongdoo · 10/07/2025 16:06

Mortgageq1 · 10/07/2025 16:02

@Digdongdoo with all respect it doesn’t matter what EXACTLY I need the money for I wasn’t asking about that. The topic was the moratorium. Thank you though.

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No you don't have to say EXACTLY what it is. But what it is does make a difference in my opinion. But you're not in the UK so maybe your mortgage is much more affordable than an average uk mortgage, in which case most of our opinions will be redundant.

holachicatita · 10/07/2025 16:06

Everyone on here is so offended by this for some reason. OP go for it if it's what you want. You never know when your circumstances might change and you ought be in the position to overpay on the mortgage.