Is this a smart or stupid thing to do?

[Independ]

To take out a mortgage term way longer than I want on the basis that I will either down size or remarry at some point?

I'm in the process of getting divorced. Im 39, earn £32,000 unlikely to increase. Have two kids. Would I be silly to take out a mortgage for as long as possible just so the repayments are lower so I can actually afford going on a holiday a year (not even abroad) and will have money for car breaking down etc? In-between now and my retirement I'm sure I would either down size or meet someone and buy a house together so it seems like an OK thing to do but there's something telling me that I should be more sensible. It's almost like using a credit card when there the option not to. I don't and have never had a credit card...I like to love within my means...but getting divorced is pushing me to my financial limit!

What do you think?

At 39 you might struggle to get a mortgage for longer than 25 years. The other consideration is that the longer you have the mortgage the more interest you will pay.

Could you get the mortgage over the longer period and then overpay? That would give you best of both worlds

I have taken a longer mortgage than I need but I am making overpayments . This way I have a buffer if I ever need it.

It's what most of us have to do. Ours is a really long term, but we'll sell well before then.

I don't think it's necessarily stupid to build in some flexibility - I've just paid off a rather unconventional and very flexible offset mortgage, which I wouldn't recommend to everyone (or possibly anyone) even if it was available in the same form, but which really worked very well for me. However, you probably need to look into what's possible overall for your mortgage rather than making that decision in isolation.

Questions to answer (not necessarily here, but in terms of making the best decision for your circumstances) - are you remortgaging your current home or buying a new property? What deposit/equity will you have? You will probably have to pay a higher rate if you're borrowing a higher percentage of a property's value (LTV = Loan to Value).

If you're getting a lower fixed rate, check how long you're committed for, and whether or not you can seek to remortgage when it ends. If you are able to get a fix, either try to make more than the minimum payment if possible, or to put the money away somewhere where you won't be tempted to keep raiding it to make ends meet, separate from day to day spending money and savings for any other purpose - look for the best interest rate possible while being able to access it just before the end of a fixed rate - the idea is that you can then make an overpayment at that point, and this will hopefully mean you can apply for a new mortgage on a lower LTV in a few years time. Or be useful if you do in fact remarry or downsize, or possibly if you don't.

It's a good idea right now while interest rates are high. You can fix for a period and then review...and pay off a chunk at remortgage time if you've saved. It's miserable having no spare money!

I wouldn’t unless you can more or less guarantee a fixed point at which you know you’ll be in a position to reduce the term such as an upcoming big promotion etc or know you’ll be strict at forcing yourself to make overpayments. You’ll pay significantly more in interest over a longer term and there’s no guarantee of either remarrying or downsizing when you imagine you will - plenty of people end up with adult DC at home well into their twenties.

Absolutely a brilliant idea.
There's nothing stopping you from overpaying each month (although check the terms) but having the longest term possible keeps your actual monthly commitment to the bank as low as possible.
Initially I'd then build up a cushion of savings, then once you're happy with that, put any spare money into overpaying unless your savings interest rate is higher than your mortgage interest rate.

Yes that's what we did at renewal to stop our payments from sky rocketing. It's a large house though and the plan is always to downsize when kids leave home

You need to have enough money to be able to have a life, so yes it makes sense. Make sure the option is there to be able to overpay if you can afford to.

Yeah i think its fine

We did this and took out 30 year instead of 20.
You need a proper exit plan though.

It's what many people do especially if you know something will change in the future. We've done that recently when we remortgaged - 45 but took out at 23 year mortgage term - to keep repayments lower for other commitments. But alongside this we're hammering money into our pensions so we hope to use the pension to repay the mortgage age 57.