What is the shortest mortgage term ?

nirish

I am interested in buying a small modest house and paying off the mortgage quickly to minimise how much interest I pay.

I only ever hear of people getting 25year mortgages or longer.

Does anyone know what the minimum length of mortgage I can get is ??

mcfisco

5 years I think

I had only 4 to go when my fixed deal ended and I had no options to go elsewhere

Thrugelmir

The term is irrelevant. As providing your mortgage allows unlimited overpayments. You can pay it off as and when you like.

A longer term allow more flexibility.

EchoLocation

Similarly, what is the lowest amount you can borrow for a mortgage?

opinions4u

Depends on the lender, but 5 years is a fairly typical minimum term. Similarly, £25k is a common minimum loan, but this will also vary between lenders.

But you could always overpay and reduce that further once the mortgage is in place.

nirish

Is it easy to find mortgages which allow unlimited overpayments ??
Will the deal be worse to allow for this.
I would rather forgo the flexibility for a better rate if that is what is required.

Mrs_Arcanum

Ours is a 20 year one but we could have opted for 15 years. Other than that I suspect 10 years or lower could just be a secured loan.

Try the Nationwide website & see what is available.

Thrugelmir

nirish wrote: »

Is it easy to find mortgages which allow unlimited overpayments ??
Will the deal be worse to allow for this.
I would rather forgo the flexibility for a better rate if that is what is required.

You need to crunch the numbers. As there a number of variables which will influence the decision. Depending on your personal circumstances. There's no one size fits all.

nirish

I have another question regarding short mortgages.

Say I take out a 7year mortgage but can only get it fixed for 3years.

When the 3years is up obviously I have only 4years left.

Will this mean I won't be able to remortgage and will be stuck on the banks higher rate for the remainder ??

Spiggle

A possible remedy could be to get a lifetime tracker mortgage that doesn't have ERC or limits on OPs, eg HSBC, over a 'normal' period, eg 25 or 20 years, meaning lower required monthlu payments and overpay as much as you can afford each month.

That way you have flexibility if your circumstances change i.e. relatively smaller required monthly payments but have the ability to overpay in five years if that was what you wanted to do.

Alternatively an offset mortgage.

Just my humble opinion.

All the best,
Spigs

Inskip75

We had a 25 year offset mortgage with Yorkshire BS for 57k and last year paid it off in 7 years - very flexible and no problems - just overpaid each month and initially had 40k in offset which was reduced as we added to and improved the new property, I think rate was BOE plus 0.75%.