Does the valuation by the mortgage people matter if you have lots of equity?

[Bouledeneige]

I am looking to downsize for various reasons but at a stretch to get what I like at a price I can afford. It is in an expensive area and I have a significant amount of equity which is more than 3 times the amount of the outstanding mortgage. However, I need to use some to pay off an interest only mortgage and my XH's share (whilst keeping the the remaining repayment which will be paid off in 6 years). I may even want to increase the repayment mortgage a bit to pay for fees, stamp duty etc. Will the valuation matter in these circumstances?

I will roughly have 85% equity for the new property.

So basically you are saying you will have an 85% deposit for your new property? In that case the valuation will not matter very much, just that your loan to value may change. For instance in you were purchasing a property at 100K and putting down 85K you would have a mortgage of 15k and the LTV would be 15%. If the property was valued at 90k but the vendors still wanted 100k your LTV would increase to 16.66% if you still used your 85K deposit.

At that level it doesn't matter as long as you can afford the amount you're borrowing.

Thanks. Very helpful.