Porting a mortgage - what is involved?

Flearoy

Hi all

My other half, with whom I have fairly recently moved in, has a property mortgaged in her name, with a fairly long fixed deal in place. I understand the mortgage can be ported. Does anyone know what the process of porting involves, i.e. credit re-checking etc? The reason I ask is that we have talked about moving home nearer to my work and would like to avoid the fairly substantial early redemption fees. Would appreciate any advice / info.

Cheers

latecomer

you need to find out whether the mortgage is portable or not - check the mortgage documentation. If it is the you shouldn't be liable for the early redemption penalty but there will be costs associated with the move.

kingstreet

I reckon we get three or four porting cases a day on the M&E board where borrowers think portability means a guaranteed mortgage or the ability to transfer a mortgage when they move.

Essentially, you have to take out a whole new mortgage when you move house. A mortgage isn't transferable from one property to another. If you qualify for a new mortgage with your existing lender, you may be able to continue (or port) the rate from your old mortgage to your new one.

Regardless of the credit crunch, if you didn't satisfy the lender's criteria for some reason, you didn't get a new mortgage. A simple question. If you're in arrears with Halifax, would you expect them to give you a new mortgage so you could move house? No? Spot on. Same with drops in income, different loan to value, altered employment status and so on...

In the bulk of cases mentioned in that story, the borrowers would struggle to get a mortgage with any lender, not just their own. The lending criteria could be the same as it was on the day they applied for their current mortgage, but a change in their circumstances means they would be unsuccessful then as they are now.

Portability is one of the issues I've been covering with borrowers as long as I can remember, but I'm not sure lenders spend as much time explaining it to borrowers as perhaps they should. They may have unrealistic expectations because of a lack of proper explanation.