When to start looking when you’re in a fixed term mortgage

[LittleRa]

I have a fixed term mortgage, due to expire December 2020. If I want to move house rather than renew my mortgage on this house, when would I start looking/put my house on market? In December or before that to lead to towards actually completing and moving at the end of the fixed term?

Also in a related question () what do you do if you see a house you want while you’re in a fixed term and your house isn’t up for sale...?

Usually a house sale will take 3-4m to complete so you could put it on the market in August/September and be ok. Although if it takes longer you'll go onto svr and not be locked in by fees so it's ok if it takes longer.

If you want to go sooner either you pay your early repayment charges (see your contract), or you ask if tin can port your mortgage. If this is possible you don't pay the fee but top up to the amount you need in total through the same lender. You need to pass affordability etc if this is an option.

Who is it with? We ported ours and because we were within 6 months of the end of the fix, Santander let us choose a new rate.

It’s a very difficult thing to judge so that you don’t pay the ERC or the SVR. Our ERC when we moved was about £1k, the annoying thing was that the move was delayed so much that had we stayed with the same lender we wouldn’t have had to pay it at all. But even a couple of months at the SVR could work out quite expensive depending on the mortgage size

You can often port your mortgage to a new property. We did this and now have two parts of the mortgage on different fixed twrm deals. If you have seen a house you like can you put yours on quickly? Depends how quickly the other one might sell though.

If your mortgage term runs out in Dec, I'd be looking at going on the market in around July/August. It will likely take you til Dec (or longer) to actually move.

We are also porting our mortgage and borrowing additional money on 2 different rates. It’s saved us a few thousand ERC and as we had 18 months left to run and our current lender is the best fit for us it’s the best deal.

I paid the early repayment charges on my last property (separated from exh and sold property we owned together), was a bitter pill but one we had to swallow.

Current mortgage with Nationwide.

Early repayment charges are about £2500 on current mortgage, not really worth it for the sake of a few months.

Can you port a mortgage if new property is quite a difference in price, plus will be adding a new person on (new DP)?

If the property is less then your current mortgage you could port current deal and just pay the early settlement for the difference

If the mortgage is ore you can port the entire new mortgage and take out an additional mortgage for the mortgage value.

This does mean you are restricted to one provider / mortgage deal end dates differ for fixed offer But potentially saves a fair amount

I would look at that vs costs / deals of whole new mortgage ... it may not come to it ... depends how long it takes to find your new dream home 🏠

I don’t know if every mortgage provider does the above but imagine they would to keep your business

Ah adding a person Sorry only just re read ... not 100% Sure I know mortgage must match deed ... so depends if they will amend the mortgage ?

I might try and get in touch with the mortgage advisor who helped me get this mortgage for some further advice. I know you shouldn’t look when not in a position to move ha ha.

Natiowide are pretty good with porting. I’m not sure about the adding an extra person on bit, but as it’s a new application a full affordability check would be run on you both so I imagine that would be okay? Definitely ask your broker.

It doesn't matter. You just transfer it. We did and our friends have in fact both of us have 2 mortgages, 1 is smaller to prop up the difference in house price.

I think the property I’ve seen will go pretty quickly though 😫 and I hadn’t even begun to think about putting mine on the market yet (my last thread about it was about whether to stay in this smaller, less nice area but cheaper and have DP move in or buy together bigger, nicer area).