Mortgage dilemma - around 1 year til 5yr fix ends WWYD? Anyone else in the same boat?

[TunnocksTCake]

We have a 1.89% mortgage which will end in October 2024 and have a sub 50% LTV, need approx £200,00 mortgage on a £410,000 house. Our Early repayment charge is around £6k. I am going to be going on mat leave in January 2024.
Currently we are getting quoted 5% rates. Anything much higher would be fairly disasterous especially with mat leave coming up... Really dont know whether to:

1. Stick with low rate we have until the end of the fix (would lock in rate 6 months before) bt this comes with risk of lenders not looking favourably on Maternity leave... Obviously would try to save as much as possible to overpay.
2. Get a rate now to start in 6 months time so we still have that time to save before mat leave starts/ mortgage increases. This means paying the £6k early repayment which, thinking about it, would take us over the 50% LTV threshold if they put it on the mortgage
3. Option 3 that I have not thought of.... enter suggestions here!

What would you do? 5% is a jump but manageable for us, it doesnt look like these rates are going to come down for at least 1 - 2 years and we are right in the middle of that timing so thinking waiting it out might leave us with a worse deal than if we do it now, and the ERPC if added to the balance doesnt make a huge difference to our lives.... Just after opinions of what others would do in our position, I'm really torn!

Sub question on ERPC - if you stick with the same lender do they still whack this on?

TLDR: cheap fix ends in 1 year 3 months, do we suck up ERPC and fix now or wait it out?

The lenders can make it possible to extend the term if a remortgage, if they can get a lower interest rate.

I'm sure they can't penalise you for being on maternity leave! We did go with a mortgage broker though, however, it certainly wasn't a necessity and we had plenty of lenders and products available to us.

I don’t think it’s maternity leave as such that is the issue but what your affordability check looks like with another dependent and childcare costs. If you’re happy to stick with your same provider then it probably doesn’t matter.

It is possible to extend the term when you do a product switch with an existing lender. It's not even called a remortgage when you stay with the same lender and extending the term does not equal a lower interest rate. Rates are determined by loan to value
All of your comments on this thread have been inaccurate and very frustrating to read
As someone who works in mortgages it is hilarious to imagine us extending a customers term by a further 25 years and hiding it in the small print.

I was also going to mention that taking a new deal with your current lender shouldn't involve any affordability checks. Given how much you'd be paying to get out of your current deal, I'd stick with it in the knowledge that you should be able to get a reasonably competitive (at that time) rate from your current lender when it comes to an end.

I wouldn't pay the ERPC I don't think. I would probably try to save the difference between what you currently pay and what you would pay at 5% over the next year to give you a buffer for the rest of your mat leave when you switch.

Thank you all, you've made me feel a bit better about the situation, knowing maternity leave isn't the black mark I thought it was is a bit of a relief! I don't know where I got that info from but it made sense in my head as so many people don't return to work on the same terms they left.
I think I'm leaning with the consensus and going to save as much as possible from now until we remortgage then probably stick with the same lender to avoid the extra checks. Crazy how easy it is to switch once you're in with them. Definitely won't mention the mat leave @WoolyMammoth55
6k is a lot to whack on and we want to keep the LTV as low as possible.

We've just had the exactly same situation (but a year ahead of you)
Current mortgage ends in Aug 23, early repayment charge 10k
We got a broker in Sep 22 (please do this they have access to rates that are not available otherwise) and they got us the best deal at the time (valid for 6 months)
In March, when we had to make a decision, rates were a bit lower so they got us a new deal. The 6 months validity will take us all to the end of current term and we won't pay the early repayment charge.
So basically we have been hedging our bets for 12 months.

On top of that we have been overpaying as much as possible for the last year to take advantage of the low rate

Maternity leave won't make a difference. I would wait it out.