Advice please for mortgage

tiredredhead

Hi
I hope someone can help me please.
My dad has sold his house and offered (accepted) on a bungalow, he has enough money from the sale of his house and my recently deceased nans house to pay of his mortgage which is £9200.
The new bungalow needs quite alot of work doing to it we dont know how much yet as there are a few decisions to be made about knocking walls around etc.
He will have around £10-15K leftover after all costs etc. I think he may need a bit more than that. I thought perphaps he could keep his mortgage and that would be enough but move it to repayment as currently an endowment which will not cover the mortgage anyway.
He has phoned Abbey who are the current mortgage provider and thay say the mortagage is on that house and if he moves then he has to pay it off but they were more than happy to organise a new one. They gave us a few figures depending on deal of course which Dad said would not be a problem to repay.

In the meantime Dad has money in bank from nans house and his mortgage still outstanding paying interest at SVR. He could pay of the mortgage and if and when we know how much he needs to complete the work to new place he can take out a new mortgage with best at that time. Abbey said that they do better deals for changing mortagage rather than completely new applications. I.E waive fees etc better rate.

Now my question Should he pay of mortgage and if/when needs more money then find new provider or new product with Abbey?

Or keep mortagage as i'm guessing swings and roundabouts with interest on mortgage and savings account, in order to secure a better deal without fee etc with Abbey.
Dad hasnt got a clue about this stuff and asks me for my opinion normally its clear cut but unsure i dont want him having to pay big fees for a very small mortgage.

Having read back over this I think I have answered my own question
Pay off mortgage and then when we know how much is needed (it could be more or less than we are thinking) then get a new mortgage. Any ideas would be gratefully received.

dimbo61

If your Dad has say £50,000 sitting in the bank earning 0.5% interest before TAX and paying ABBEY 3.5% on his mortgage then he is losing money.
He could pay a large lump sum off the mortgage now ( check that he wont pay any ERC,s) and still keep say £15K in savings.
If he keeps a small balance outstanding on the mortgage then he is still an ABBEY customer