DH keeps making mortgage overpyamentd ton reduce the term

[Redratefree]

We have a take home of £4k and a £1.9k mortgage. DH keeps making overpayments to the term of the mortgage, it was 27 years but it's been reduced to 25.25 years due to overpayments. However, I want him to reduce our monthly payments as this will give us more breathing space. He disagrees and wants to continue to reduce the term because it offers more flexibility when remortgaging. I received 2 emails from the bank this weekend for 2 overpayments of £500 and then one for £50, as soon as he gets paid he'll make an overpayment.

😂😂😂😂😂

Compromise and put a smaller amount on

Life insurance won't pay for kids Uni fees, expensive school trips, to build a granny annex, to extend the house, fund a once in a lifetime family trip, buy a new car, fund major house upgrades or remortgages with rising interest rates etc. Many of these are scenarios myself or friends have experienced or are about to have to finance and myself and dh are in a more favourable financial position because we overpaid our mortgage as much as we could. We are only mid 40's but we've been able to fund a big house move without overstretching ourselves (and still have savings for ourselves and the kids) because we'd already paid off our previous home. There's nothing worse than ending up tied to a huge mortgage with loads of finance.

I'm on the fence OP! It is a good thing to overpay your mortgage when and if you can. But on the other hand if not overpaying £50 will make day to day life a little easier then that is not unreasonable either.
DH and I overpaid when we could but still managed to update cars when needed and have a decent holiday every two years. We still paid off six years early on a 15 year mortgage by not not reducing payments when offered.
It's finding a balance but not at the expense of either of you or your DH having peace of mind. You do need cash savings for any random emergencies - once you've paid it to the mortgage, you can't get it back if the car needs fixing at £400 in an emergency. But it isn't reasonable to just want nicer things unless your clothes are in rags and the car is getting expensive to maintain due to age.

On the topic of mortgages, can I use this thread to ask a cheeky question? I think your husband is sensible btw! But a bit more communication would be nice. I would say: thanks for doing that, it will really help in the long run, but could we possibly dedicate 30% of the amount you overpay to a savings account for when we have an emergency?

when you remortgage, how does the house valuation part work, to determine the loan:value ratio? Especially if you have done lots of work inside? Can you get an estate agent to come over & valuate before remortgaging?

Is a better loan:value ratio really something that gives you a better interest rate?

Sensible to overpay as it does make a huge difference when remortgaging. However I do agree with you that breathing space can be helpful especially at pinch-points throughout the year ie christmas/summer holidays. What we do each month is divvy up any income that’s left over between holiday fund, mortgage overpayment and long term. Maybe something like that would be acceptable to both of you as you would benefit from breathing space and he would overpay on the mortgage.

Seriously.. your DH sounds sensible and is thinking long-term. Try to appreciate that - it's far better to have a partner interested in paying down the mortgage than someone who spends impulsively and doesn't think about the future.

Id be extending the term to get the monthly payments down, and then saving alongside in a higher interest ISA or putting the extra into a private pension to make a lump payment in your 50s, save yourself the tax! Why doesn’t he salary sacrifice? Then he’s not paying tax on the money, he will be way better off long term.

Anything like this needs to be a discussion assuming both your names are on the mortgage. You have to discuss and agree together, not just do whatever you want without the other person agreeing. For this reason I think your husband is being unreasonable here. However, if you both want to overpay then reducing the term is the right way to go due to the amount in interest it saves so I’m with him there. Could you agree together on an amount to overpay each month, say £200 off the term, or whatever you both agree you can afford? And the rest goes into another account, earmarked for something else, again agreed together? Holiday/house/car etc.

You can get a valuation but I’ve found the LTV ratios are only critical when you are running an interest only mortgage. As the bank needs to know your value can pay the loan. With repayment they are generally lower risk and you are paying the capital and interest.

Ive never understood in the UK why so many people pay repayment mortgages, you may as well do interest only run savings alongside or use the house in 20+ years to downsize and pay off and live your life with much lower payments. We’ve just spent 5 years paying £800 pcm on a £450 mortgage. It’s a godsend when money is tight with teens and uni fees.

Def worth overpaying

we did that and knocked 25yrs to 15yrs so saving huge amounts of interest

I'm.overpaying too but the penalties are nothing compared to the years that I am knocking off x

....but the point is that DH is doing this without consulting OP.

It's 2025, not 1950. Women's opinions about the family budget are as valid as a mans.

Paying 62.5% of your income towards the mortgage is not sensible!

Overoaying is a very good idea when you have the disposable income but arguably paying that high a ratio does not

YANBU.

While overpaying is nice and being mortgage free is great, you are overpaying "future money" now - money which would very probably be much lesser burden for you to pay later than now - now you have two children and family life. Later you'll supposedly earn a bit more (even if just by the inflation , the same mortgage will still mean less trouble, or maybe one of you is part-time /flexible now), children will become financially independent.
You managed to get a mortgage and home. You can afford now to live a bit as well.

This is very frugal. £40/month for clothes for the whole family? Only £100/month towards travel isn’t even going to get you one family holiday per year.

@AgingLikeGazpacho the point is that £2000 is reduced by 25% down to £1500 - a third of that could easily be taken up with council tax and utilities leaving a £1000 for everything else which clearly doesn’t stretch far

My mortgage rate is a lot lower than the return I get on my investments so I do not make overpayments as the money is making me more by staying invested.

Good point. Someone also mentioned I'd left out car insurance and MOT which would add another 1k onto the yearly bill (we buy ours second hand outright so don't have a monthly cost).

Someone else mentioned £1200 is low for holidays, which is true but more expensive holidays don't align with our financial goals at the moment.

And yes we don't spend much at the hairdressers (to answer a PP) - husband goes to a local barber, I cut kids hair and I get mine done once every 6 months. Clothes are all bought off Vinted, usually as bundles (but all good quality).

Doing the above budget allows us to pay an extra £15k towards our mortgage every year (which decreases the interest rate) and save a further 1.8k a month. The goal is to save hard while kids are too small to notice so we can spend more once they're older.

And @AgingLikeGazpacho things like hairdressers also goes up when you get older! I am not vain (rarely wear make up) but dying my hair and following a skin routine now I am perimenopause is needed

On one hand I’m with DH and think he’s sensible and doing the right thing.
On the other hand, your mortgage is almost 50% of your take home pay, which seems so high and I’m amazed you manage, even without overpayments! What am I doing wrong?!

I agree, but on the bright side, there will be more equity in the property when she divorces him.

Well if you're not happy with any overpayment at all, because you want to reduce the monthly amount (presumably you mean pay less on the mortgage per month?), then there isnt any room for manoeuvre from you

One of you is going to have the casting vote and vote with their pocket

Is he taking his money out of his pay straight into the overpayments? Is it money out of the joint account? How are your financials set up, we have our own money and pay into a joint account for joint things, but if I wanted to make a payment on the mortgage out of my own money thats my business.

My OH is terrible with money, he thinks Im controlling about money, if he had his way we would be bankrupt by now, so call it controlling if you like, theres no talking sense to people at times.

I think OP is saying that she doesn’t want the term to shorten but to reduce monthly payments gradually with each overpayment. So from £2k currently to £1950 and so on. Or alternatively stop the overpayment so they have spare money.

OP I don’t think that overpayments allow you to reduce payments. As far as I’m aware it’s the term that reduces and there’s no option to reduce the monthly payment instead (although you could check with your lender).

Overpay while you can but maybe meet in the middle at a set amount and do it properly and add it to your direct debit. It sounds like you can afford to overpay some but also have some for luxuries.

Or put it in your pension.