Mortgage Porting - conflicting advice - help please!

m_13

I don't think mortgage lenders used to make it so clear what exactly you could port in a portable mortgage. We've moved lots of times so I'm wondering if the process used to be less transparent and lenders simply did an internal process using previous information and asked you to sign again?

When we contacted Woolwich to port our mortgage which has a balance outstanding that is less than my annual salary the person on the 'phone told me we'd have to start again and implied that I might have lost my job and not told them.

I found their attitude offensive and whilst I understand they may be approaching risk in a different way the implication was that we were trying to pull the wool over their eyes in some way. When I pointed out that we were still wanting to borrow less then my annual salary and reduce the term if possible on a new LTV of 19% and the risks were the same as when we took out the mortgage he was insistent that without proof I could tell him whatever I wanted!

We worked out the figures and even with the ERC it was cheaper to switch to a new provider so they've lost the business altogether.

kingstreet

TBH the porting process has always been an issue and been badly explained (or not explained at all), by the lenders themselves.

A mortgage is a one-property agreement that cannot be changed from one to another, so it has always been the case that a new application would be needed and if accepted, would then allow the transfer of the product to the new mortgage.

It's probably best thought of as transferring an old product to a new mortgage, rather than transferring an old mortgage to a new property.

As far back as I can remember, certainly more than ten years ago, we were adding a section to our fact-finds and suitability letters explaining what portability is and how it works.