Sold our flat, want to keep mortgage deal but nowhere to buy yet, how does it work?

[Mammina]

At the moment we have a very good deal on our mortgage due to interest rates being v. low. We are in the process of selling our property, but haven't found anywhere to buy yet, which means we'll have to go into rented. In order to buy a new place we will need a bigger mortgage, but because our deal is so good, the plan was to keep the existing one then get another mortgage to cover the extra money.
So, if we need to rent for e.g. 6 months, we won't have a property to pay mortgage on - can we freeze the mortgage for a period of time? How does it work?

Sometimes they let you hold the mortgage over for 30 days or 3 months, phone them and ask. I would not be very optimistic, however. We had to let our old mortgage go because we sold our house and lived with relatives for 4 months and they wouldn't hold it over that long.

Don't think you can as mortgage companies use the house as security for their loan and one of your solicitor's jobs when you sell will be to pay off all the charges and mortgages against it. If you don't have an asset worth the amount of money they have loaned to you, the lenders will want their money back.

Bugger. It's such a good deal it would almost be worth paying it even though we don't have a house, but I guess you can't pay a mortgage on something that doesn't exist...

Depends on conditions of your mortgage. With ours for example if we buy within 3 months of settling we can port the mortgage deal and use any remaining term.

will have to check the conditions. doubt we'll find somewhere that quickly though.

Doubtful especially if it is a good one.

If I remember correctly when we moved a year or so back we had 6 months to find somewhere else and keep the same mortgage. You could always ring your mortgage company and put a theoretical question to them.

thanks everyone, I'll give them a 'what if' call

mortgage is on a property, it acts as security for the bank. but you should ask about a mortgage in principle with your current lenders as they will know your history but i will be only that - ie to lend a certain amount of money. The actual rate can only be reserved once you have a property in mind.