Paid off mortgage today, how did you feel when yours ended?

[CheeryOchreCat]

We paid off our mortgage today! I think I will need some time to get my head around it.

Do you remember when yours was paid off, and how did you feel? We were in a position to do so courtesy of an inheritance, so mixed feelings on that.

I would love to be in this position. Life has changed so much since remortgaging just before the financial crash . Unemployment and ill health have made things so difficult. Most of my friends have paid theirs off . It must be great to have a least one secure asset . Congratulations 🎉

Sad mainly, because I was paying it with life insurance after DH died and I wanted him back instead, relieved and grateful for the life insurance and that we hadn’t cancelled it after all when we needed to reduce outgoings and didn’t think we needed it, relieved because it had turned into a admin nightmare between my bank the money was in and the building society the mortgage was with and neither seemed to be able to tell me how to transfer such large amounts of money (I had no idea you couldn’t transfer that amount simply by internet banking) and my bank who I had banked with for years wanted several forms of ID I didn’t have and I was stuck in a long queue in the bank not long before I had to pick my children up from school. And, upset at the person from the bank or building society who said Congratulations.

Much sympathy for the people who have paid theirs off through unwanted circumstances. I imagine that must be very hard.

We will, fingers crossed, be paying ours off this year. For us it is exciting because once paid off we are looking at DH retiring. He has a physical job and his knees are packing up. Plus we have DGCs on the way.

We will also be transferring the house into joint name (currently just in my name) so that we both have assets if/when it comes to assessing for care home fees.

We were delighted & able to make life changes for the better once that financial commitment was gone. We celebrated the moment with a bottle of fizz & raised a glass to those no longer with us who helped make it happen. Happy for you x

it was quite nice but I'd done the full 25 years so the monthly payment wasn't that much now .... £158 a month on a student grant during the mid 1980s, no idea how I managed it.

We paid ours off last year - DH was 50 and I was 49. I did sort of hope that 2026 would then be a year when we got to enjoy being mortgage-free. However, just before Christmas, we had a leak in the roof. When we got that repaired, we discovered that half our roof was rotten, so a small repair turned into an entire roof replacement, and we will be paying for this until August!

Sorry to those who have mixed feelings because of the reasons they've been able to pay their mortgages off; I am sure this is bittersweet.

Congrats to all who have paid off their mortgages.

For us, it was the most liberating feeling of financial freedom, especially since we worked hard at overpaying it over the years. Now all the spare cash is freed up, we used what we would have put into repaying the mortgage into our ISA allowances and those of our children. And more overseas holidays.

A word of caution. Without the mortgage registered against the property, it is easier for fraudsters to impersonate the owners, transfer the property behind their backs and steal the proceeds of sale. Therefore, in order to prevent against fraud, it is advisable to set up an account on the Land Registry Alert Service to get email alerts when certain activity occurs on your property, so you can take action if needed.

In addition, you should put a restriction on the title which requires a certificate confirming that any applicant is satisfied as to the identity of the transferor.

We paid our mortgage off in February, at the age of 45! Felt amazing and it still feels good, as it's a weight off our minds.

My DH calculated that we would be able to pay if off at that age, if we kept savings regularly. I wasn't convinced that it would be possible, but fortunately I received a redundancy package that covered half of the mortgage balance, so we've still some savings to continue building on.

My current home is on the market. I am hoping to sell, downsize and pay off my mortgage. I am in my 60's and it still seems a long way to state retirement age when you have a chronic illness. Fingers crossed for an offer soon.

Congratulations OP. I felt relief and a bit of pride that we'd done it all on our own with no help from anyone. I remember when the letter came we danced around the kitchen.

We will be paying ours off in next couple of months and I can’t wait, just to not have that money going out every month, to not have to worry about interest rate and other COL rises as much.

It felt ok until I realised it affected my credit rating

We paid ours off about 6 years ago, 10 years early, we were quite excited and felt really proud of ourselves but didn’t want to tell people because we didn’t want to seem like we were bragging. We ended up moving a year later and bought our dream home and got another mortgage, we’ve got 10K left on and will pay that off this year . Not sure how I will feel about that because I sort of feel like it’s paid off already, we have the money but want to do a new bathroom and some other things so we’re waiting to see.

We got the deeds to our house when we paid it off. The bank sent them to us

We paid ours off as part of a House Move - we bought outside London so managed the double whammy of buying a bigger house for less and paying off the Mortgage in one go.
To be honest the house sale and move took up so much of our focus that I didn’t register the lack of Mortgage payments as such at first! But now we are diverting that money into pensions and savings. I was 54 when it all happened.

Relief. I paid it off just prior to getting made redundant.

Mixed feelings really. Relief as my work dried up completely during the pandemic and a bit of sadness that I felt compelled to use my tax free lump sum of my pension which I had been saving into for years. I should really have been enjoying that now.

As an aside does anyone remember the man in Luton whose unmortgaged house was ‘stolen’ from him ? HM Land Registry have a property alert function so you are notified if anyone conducts a search on your property.

I have kept my credit rating up by occasional use of a credit card which I clear in full that month.

My first one, it was partly due to an inheritance so felt a bit flat to be honest, but it was a relief that it was gone - I thought it would be give me loads more options, but in reality what it gave me was a feeling of security to take a small chance on a new job - which paid off.

Second time - huge relief as DH had had to leave his job and part of the settlement paid it off and it took a year for him to be well enough to work again.

Third time - it'll be nice - especially as it was my idea we moved here and got a new mortgage - we are coming up to retirement and it's like that's a nice thing to have closed off first and not have to use a lump sum for.

We’ve got the cash sitting in an ISA earning 4.5%, will pay it off when the 1% deal ends in October, I had to really convince DH that it was better this way, he just wanted it gone. I’d rather have the extra £700 in interest.

Felt really good to pay off the mortgage, and the last payment was actually sooner than expected.
DH got a share payout as part of a company merger so we had enough to pay off the mortgage.
I contacted the bank to ask about coordinating paying off when the fixed term ended, and they said as it was within a month of the end I could just pay it off right then.
DH got back home from work to the news we were mortgage-free already, and we celebrated with a glass of fizz.
Was so glad to have a paid off house when I became chronically ill a few years later as it took the pressure off finances when I had to really step back from working.

These are so inspiring to read!

I've only started my mortgage very recently at the age of 44 (divorced mum of 2) I'll be paying until I retire but am focusing on a combination of overpaying and s&s isa to try to bring the end date forward, though the payment is high enough as it is so not massive amounts! My current goal is to bring it forward so I can retire at the 'default' age, which I have to remind myself is a huge step already given 6 months ago I wouldn't have been able to retire ever with being stuck private renting.

Well done all!

I payed off my post divorce mortgage with a lump sum from my occupational pension, age 55 at the time. I stood in the town square and wept tears of joy, it was a big day for me after leaving a financially and emotionally abusive marriage, he said I’d be nothing without him and would be crawling back. I’m not nothing, I’m something, never did crawl back

We pay ours off later this year and I can’t wait. We overpay so it’s a significant sum and we will hopefully notice the different and can put it into savings and a pension.

Annoyed. It was during lockdown so couldn’t celebrate. We had a part endowment and they didn’t pay on time, so had to fight them. Was nice when the deeds and old paperwork came through the post, but the excitement wasn’t there.

Mixed. I paid it off with DH works life assurance. The relief was immense as I thought I would end up sleeping in the car and had planned an exit. Yet extremely sad that DH death was the only reason it had to be done and was able to be done. Nearly 2 years on, I’m extremely lucky and relieved it’s paid as it’s given me opportunity to do stuff with my life I never thought I would be able to do.
Much rather have him back.

Congratulations op 🎉
We paid ours off 5 years early I was 41 at the time !! Now nearly 50 !!
It felt like an amazing achievement and I thank God now we done it the payments were so low we doubled them when interest rates were ridiculously low !!
COL now is insane!!