Mortgage and downsizing

[Ansumpasty]

This is all way above my head, so looking for a little insight or advice.
Things aren’t good with my husband, with a possible separation. He is considering moving back to his native country to work, and I would stay here with the children.
We have a joint mortgage- the house is worth around 400k and we have a mortgage of 163k.
He’s open to me keeping the house in the UK for now, keeping it in both our names. However, I’d like to downsize to make it more manageable (house needs work and constant upkeep of large garden) and to reduce monthly mortage repayments.
What’s the best way to go about this? Will we be penalised for downgrading and paying back more of the mortgage early?
Thanks 😊

It depends on what type of mortgage you have. If you have a fixed rate mortgage there will be a redemption penalty to pay if you finish the mortgage before the end of the fixed term. If you phone your Lender they will tell you what the penalty would be.

Or you could port the 163k mortgage to a cheaper property. Again your Lender can advise you if you could switch the mortgage to a different property.

You would need to consult your mortgage paperwork or your broker. If you are within the initial 2/3/5 year fixed rate you would need to see if your mortgage is portable, and if so, you can likely redeem 10 or possibly 20% of the balance without penalty.
Or, if you can wait until you are at the end of the initial fixed or tracker rate then you can redeem it completely and take out a new, smaller mortgage on a new property without penalty. This is unlikely to time perfectly with purchasing a new property so you may well end up on the lenders SVR for a few months, or you could take out a penalty-free product.