Money dilemma- re mortgage and poss redundancy

[Cloudtraffic]

Just trying to get my head round a potentially difficult money decision and not sure where to start.

Any advice/suggestions would be really welcome.

In short:

Have (had?) comfortable job - not as secure as I once thought now (civil service)

Restructure means likely to be redundancies in April 2021 - I could be ok but who knows?!

Have a mortgage (16 years to go) with £210,000 remaining (I’m early 50s and it’s just in my name). We have other (pension finance if I lose my job - but not enough to cover mortgage payments which are around £1200)

Obviously I would seek work elsewhere if push came to shove but am in a very saturated profession - so earnings would drop and may be long period of uncertainty

So... dilemma is this: have just been told I have got windfall (from relative) of £65k

Question is - do I sit on this money or do I try to reduce mortgage (tied into another three years and not keen to pay penalty for overpayment. I have option for 10% overpayment so am thinking of this ...but worry that if plough this money into house then if market goes tits-up I’ve lost my “security blanket” of unexpected lump sum.

I know folks are in far worse situations but scenarios are giving me sleepless nights!

What would you do?

Do not overpay mortgage right now, this is a time to get as big an emergency fund as you can so you can continue to pay mortgage if you are without work. That amount of cash should give you mortgage payments for years. That's like gold if you lose your job.

With our mortgage and overpayments within a year can be used to pay a portion of the monthly payment later on if required. Does yours do the same?

So eg if my mortgage is 1000pcm but you overpay by £100pcm, then in six months time, I can ask them to reduce my monthly payment (as a one off) to £400. Or for 6 months to £900pcm. I think there are limits to how much I can drop by in a month though.

If you do a 10%overpayment you might be able to reduce mortgage payments later on if you do loose your job