Advice on not being able to port a mortgage 😔

[Strawberryfizzylaces]

Hi, can anyone help me?

I’d been with my husband for 15 years, married for 8, and up until May last year jointly co - owned our house. We had a separation last year and I moved out, him taking my name off of the mortgage and buying me out of my share.

We have since got back together and looking to move, we have seen our dream house and looking to port the mortgage which we were told should have been a problem. So put an offer in, was accepted all hunky dory.

Then last night husband was reading up on nationwide’s terms for porting a mortgage and we were dismayed to discover we won’t be able to because they will not accept any mortgage being ported for 12 months if the circumstances change (ie putting my name back onto the mortgage? )

We are so worried and haven’t been able to sleep. He’s going to give nationwide a call in the morning to see if he can be referred but it’s likely they’ll say no.

I then suggested we look into online mortgage brokering and husband said he doesn’t want to go for these as they usually will suggest a mortgage not on the high street with a massive interest / high risk?

The other option is to pull out of the sale, rent for a bit and still sell the house in his name and wait for another property to come up and start afresh but this house is literally the only one I’ve seen in a long time where it’s both ideal inside and affordable. There’s no chain at the other end either.

Please can someone give some advice, I’m at my wits end and I don’t know what to do :-(

If you’re still married then any property he owns is a marital asset regardless of whether your name is on the deeds or not - can he not buy the new property by porting his mortgage and then, when it comes time to remortgage again, you can remortgage jointly? Or is the issue at you need both your incomes taken into account to afford the new place?

If Nationwide say no then mortgage brokers don’t mean high risk or interest loans. The point of a mortgage broker is that they are intermediaries and have access to all the terms and conditions and various products on offer from a range of different lenders and can find the best for your situation. But presumably your husband wants to port the mortgage because otherwise there would be an early repayment fee? In which case an alternative mortgage isn’t going to solve the problem?

See a mortgage broker. Either a recommended in person one, they will still be working via zoom etc, or London and Country always gets good reviews as an online broker. They know their market, can give advice and if they do come back with high risk/interest (which is unlikely) you don't have to taken them up on it and will have lost nothing. It's in their interest to get you the best deal. Your husband's reason for not using a broker sounds like a very odd excuse to not move house to me.

Yes both our incomes would need to be taken into account.

And yes the early repayment charge runs into the thousands 😔

We're just in process of moving and are with Nationwide however an issue with cladding on our new property means we've got to move mortgage provider as they won't let us port but it's worked in our favour. Current NW rate is 2.19 but we're going to Santander who are 1.4 so we're borrowing an additional £15k over same term to do decorating and it's increased our mortgage payments by less than £10pm so worth considering just moving.

Another recommendation for London and Country

Btw our early redemption was £6k which we've luckily been able to knock off the purchase price but even if we hadn't then we would still be quids in

I think you prob need to take the hit on the early repayment charges and get a new mortgage.

I was never on the mortgage of my 'dh's' house (because he was on the best tracker prior to buying house with me and he was able to port and didn't need my salary). We bought house together and lived there 13 years. Regardless it was a marital asset so I didn't care. Worked out well, we relocated recently and our first buyers of our home pulled out so I was luckily able to get a mortgage in my own name on new house. First house now sold and we've 6k early repayment charge (to pay off second mortgage as we will be mortgage free) but worth it in the long run.

Are you sure this is an issue @Strawberryfizzylaces? I called Nationwode about a really similar issue last week.
I have a mortgage on my own and want to move, I'd need to put my partner on it and borrow more and he even said we were allowed to change the term, it was a common misconception that you weren't allowed to. In his words, having the mortgage just locks me into the interest rate.
I asked as to what situations I wouldn't be able to port, and he said not many - so long as it's mortgageable.
Give em a call tomorrow and best of luck.

Wow overwork, you’ve really given me some hope. I really really hope you’re right and that we are able to. I just know when we seperated my husband really struggled getting nationwide to agree to take just him on the mortgage even though he could easily afford the repayments and he had to fight tooth and nail and ended up getting 2 in the end running alongside each other. I get the impression they are a stickler for rules and I’m just really worrying, he wouldn’t tell me there’s a likelihood they’ll say no for nothing. Thank you, I hope it works out tomorrow too :-(

Thanks everyone for your help and advice x

We moved house last year and needed an interest only mortgage on a temporary basis as the sale of our old house fell through.

We were with Nottingham BS but they also offer an independent broker service. They were great and we got the deal we needed with Santander.

Ah, so what they offered us was to have in effect 2 x mortgages, mine on my current interest rate and my partner to kind of get his own product for less time. We are allowed to borrow up to our joint affordability. It means that they will end within 6 months of each other, so one of us will go onto the variable rate or a tracker, until the other product ends. And then we'll remortgage all together.
Didn't seem to have any downsides other than we would have to pay another set up fee on the second mortgage.
From your latest update having 2 mortgages would be an issue?

Hi. We recently ported our mortgage with Nationwide. Original mortgage was in dh's name only and we ported and we're both on this one as we needed to use both our incomes due to buying a bigger house.

Ours is working similarly to what @overwork said that you effectively have two mortgages running at once then when the fixed period ends of the first mortgage (the one my dh originally had) we'll consolidate them into one mortgage.

Good luck and one more small piece of advice is when you do port your mortgage check they haven't charged you the redemption penalty anyway. They did with us and it took us over a month to sort out (was nearly 10k)

Hopefully you have now called Nationwide and spoken to them directly. Worrying when your dh says

I then suggested we look into online mortgage brokering and husband said he doesn’t want to go for these as they usually will suggest a mortgage not on the high street with a massive interest / high risk?

Completely untrue. London and Country search the whole market and recommended Nationwide to us. They do not charge you any fee for this service. They just find the best mortgage for your circumstances. Most of them you will have heard of. We have used them for about 18 years!

Thanks for the advice about the redemption fee :-)

I have relayed the online broker comment and he is more open to looking at that.

Nationwide said it had been referred and needs an underwriter to look at it. Couldn’t tell us if we have or haven’t got it, and we have another 5 working days to wait. Gahh!

Not just online brokers- there are many "smaller guys" out there (i work for one!) that don't have the advertising budget of London and Country sadly but offer the same service!
Find yourself a good independent broker and they'll be worth their weight in gold.

Or better service i should add!