Remortage question

ellersb

Not sure if anyone can help, but I remortgaged with Santander in March as no one else would give us one! My OH works for himself and freelances, and has only been doing this since Febraury 2010 and I'm currently looking for work after being made redundant after maternity.
So we had to stick with Santander. We owe £104,000, and interest is fixed for 3 years at around 4.7%, so payments are £525 a month. I'm pretty sure we can overpay 10%.
However, as soon as I'd agreed the mortgage over the phone, I thought about the house value affecting the interest as LTV would be different. When we first bought this house in 2009, it was valued at £135,000 by Santander as that's what our offer was and that was the outstanding mortgage. I've always found that the value (if done by mortgage co) always matched the offer though! It was a probate sale and if we put it on the market now, it'd be for nearer the £250,000 mark. So I called Santander back and asked them if we could get a better deal if we had the house revalued and found we had a better LTV. She said that was for remortgaging only. I accepted that (stupid stupid!!) and hung up, but surely we WERE remortgaging?! Is this worth pursuing, or do I now need to wait until this term is up as well?

Dave_the_Ginger_Cat

I would work out how much difference it would make to you before you decide if to pursue it.

So say you could get to 3.7% rather than 4.7%, it would make the difference £1040 per year (on simple interest only basis, it's actually a little more than that) or just over £3k over the fixed period. That would sound like being worth pursuing

If the difference however is a fraction of a percentage, it would sound like being less attractive.

Your LTV is fairly decent right now, and you may find it doesn't make too much difference.

Abbey would have valued it, and do ask for sight of the valuation - for remortgages where the difference is material I would expect the valuer to remark on it.

Hope you find a good answer

kingstreet

A remortgage is moving your mortgage from one lender to another. What you did was a product transfer, taking a new product with your existing lender. Normally, they won't bother re-valuing a property for a transfer as it carries a cost they (and normally the borrower) won't want to carry.

To do what you want to do you would have had to change lenders and you admit with your partner's short-term self-employment and your unemployment, that was unlikely to be possible.

Santander doesn't publish the products is offers to existing borrowers not moving home, so there's no way of knowing if there was a lower rate available to you. In the last few months I haven't heard anyone on here saying what a good deal they got from Santander when their current product ended.

You may not have made a mistake, IMHO.

You are also correct. You can overpay upto 10% each year in payments of a minimum of £500 each.

Last point, surveyors carrying out valuations for mortgage purposes are simply establishing the property is worth the agreed price and is suitable security for a mortgage. A market valuation is not being carried out.

ellersb

Thanks peeps - I thought we'd remortgaged so thank you for clearing that up! It's a bloody minefield but i'll get there one day. I was reading the mortgage-free board and that's now inspired me, but not if we can't move lenders at the moment I guess.
Thanks for the help!