Renewing Mortgage

greggp_2

My wife and I have a mortgage for 25 years with Abbey. We took out a fixed term (5.75 % at the time) for a 5 year period in 2001 which is due to end in August this year. We know that we could save some money on our monthly payments by renewing this in August. However there is a possibility that we would consider moving house in the next 12-18 months. What is the minimum term of a mortgage? If say this was 2 years and we renewed our mortgage for a fixed 2-year period would we have to wait 2-years before we could move again?

Your help would be appreciated.

herbiesjp

You could look at variable rate mortgages (trackers/discounts) that did not have any penalties to close the mortgage down.

Some also offer free legal fees and free valuations on re-mortgage deals

homer_j_3

In short, No.

If the product that you remortgage to includes the option of portability then you can exercise the option to take your mortgage with you. There are a few points to be aware of though

1- you must satisfy the lenders criteria at the time. This includes credit chacks, employment checks - effectively the same checks a new applicant would go through.
2- the property must be suitable for the lenders lending criteria
3- if you borrow less than you have on the exisiting mortgage you could end up paying a proportionate fee
4- if you want to borrow more then you will have to choose from a live product at the time and this may have repayment charges that differ from your original mortgage. You will need to carefully consider the options here.

If you fail to meet their criteria, you could be faced with the ERC to moveproperties so as herbie says, you may want to consider a route which gives you greater flexibility.