Mortgage Advice - porting, aigs etc

[UrsulaBirken]

Hello All,
I'm wondering if anyone here could offer some advice.

We are three years into a five year fixed rate with Natwest but now we want to move house. Natwest confirm that our mortgage is portable and we potentially have a large deposit (70 - 80k depending on the offers we get, but everything round here is selling v quickly and often above asking price).

We do want to size up. At the moment we have a mortgage of 130k but we would be looking to increase this to 200-230k depending on the house. We earn just over 80k combined Our old interest rate is 3.2% so not as low as many around at the moment.

Would you port? Or buy yourself out of the mortgage (about 3k)?

Also, is it worth me experimenting with getting an agreement in principle from another lender(s). Most say they do soft searches - so could I get a few? Do they really not go on your credit file?

I'm pretty clueless. I've tried the london and country website but it looks like these days you have to get an agreement in principle before they'll speak to you.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. TIA

You need to speak to a broker because they'll be able to calculate if dumping the Natwest mortgage will be more cost effective than porting and topping up.

Please do not shop around for AIPs, even though some soft search not all do and having multiple checks can affect your ability to get a mortgage.

We are in a similar position with HSBC and our broker looked at what would be cheaper for us. There wasn't much in it for us between them and NatWest, but if we stuck with HSBC we would end up with two mortgages with different terms and two different booking fees for remortgaging until we align them (and I'm not entirely clear how we would do that!)

You need to find out what mortgage rate is available to you now and if that would save you £3000 over 2 years, to be honest, I would expect you to get a rate of 2% or less from the figures you've given so it might cheaper overall to pay the fine, but speak to broker, see what's available and they'll be able to tell you easily.

Thanks everyone. I have an appointment with the broker in our estate agent's office on Monday

We were in almost identical situation with same bank , working out better to break our deal , pay the 3 % early repayment and stay with same bank for a new mortgage at better current rate! We did all the sums, mortgage broker double checked etc

Don't use your estate agents broker! Use an independent whole of market broker that you pay a fee to. Paying a fee means that they are more likely to be able to focus on the absolute best deal for you, not necessarily who will give them the best commission (someone has to pay the broker if it's not you and ultimately everyone works for the person who pays them ... )

More to think about! How much should I be looking to pay a broker?

You don't need an AIP to speak to London & Country - they get you the AIP.

Some of the questions you're asking are quite fundamental to the process - it might be worth you reading a guide like the one on the Money saving Expert website. I'm worried you're going to walk into a situation best avoided!

We paid a flat fee of £400 - they were excellent though. They also declared any income they would make from lenders to us when providing the best mortgages. Our internet rate was 1.6% and our figures are not very different to yours. I also always worried that with an estate agent advisor they knew my maximum that I could go to and it would weaken my bargaining options

That's a good point Zaffa

Slides I'm worried about that too! I'm hopeless at maths and I feel out of my depth with anything money related. I will try getting through to London and Country again.

I would port, but given yours is over 3% may be worth buying out. We were a year into a 5 year deal. Would have been 10k to buy out. Mortgage broker sorted out a 2 year tracker to "top up", so we'll get another 2 year tracker in 2 years, then remortgage the whole lot into one product when our main mortgage is up. A good independent broker will be able to sort it all put for you though, they won't (or shouldn't) do any searches until they have found the right product for your circumstances.

We pay our broker £250 because my family has used him a lot for the past 20 years. Regular fee is £400 I think.

Our broker charges £495 but is worth his weight in gold.

I've never paid for a broker. Unless you have very complex circumstances they aren't entirely necessary and gone are the days of brokers having exclusive access to cheaper rates. I've had varying circumstances including an excellent broker, a shocking one and doing it independently myself, each time I searched for rates myself and found what the brokers could offer is what I could get myself. The excellent broker was paid for via commission. I'd go back to him but not at a cost. I'm confident enough in my own understanding of it all.