Almost mortgage-free! What now?

rosie383

My DH and I are in the very fortunate position of being almost mortgage-free. Hopefully by the end of the month we will have enough to pay off the last bit :T
So, a question for those who have already done so......... what exactly do we do now?
The mortgage is with Santander and they said that we have to pay £99 for all the legal handling they have done and to get the deeds. Is this fairly standard?
And what should we expect? A letter to say it's all paid off and the deeds?
Happy to be in this position but a bit in the dark. Oh, and they were trying to persuade us to not close the mortgage but to 'keep it active' in case we want to start it up again. Is there any benefit to this? Our plan is to continue saving until we have enough to upgrade to a slightly larger house but still be mortgage-free.

evi3000

Congratulations. Lucky, lucky you!
Don't know what's for the best.

Skittle

Wow that's brilliant, congratulations!

We are years behind you on our quest to be mortgage free, but can't wait to be in your position.

I have read that it is sometimes advantageous to keep the mortgage open as it means your mortgage provider is responsible for the holding of your deeds which you would otherwise need to make alternative arrangements for.

Jonbvn

Skittle wrote: »

I have read that it is sometimes advantageous to keep the mortgage open as it means your mortgage provider is responsible for the holding of your deeds which you would otherwise need to make alternative arrangements for.

All deeds in England & Wales are now held electronically by the land registry. You can donwload your deeds from the website for a small fee, to check that the charge against the property has been removed.

Given that you do not require the hard copies of the deeds what is the £99 for exactly? Unless it is specifically mentioned in your mortgage T&C's I would challenge them on this.

Beckyy

IMO it makes no difference with the deeds, solicitors will look after them for free. The reasons people usually decide to keep a mortgage active for are 1.) to avoid the fees you would pay at the end and 2.) as a souce of low interest debt if you need it in the future. For example, if they need more more for home improvements (new kitchen/extension etc.) they can borrow on their existing mortgage instead of taking out new finance/a loan.

Personally, I'd rather get shot of it, but everyone has a different situation/opinon.

Well done on getting there

heygringo

Hi Rosie, We managed to become "mortgage free" 4yrs ahead of the 25yr term. I kept the mortgage open with 50p, yes, 50p.

The deeds were kept in a "Deed safe" arrangement in NI with Santander (then Abbey) at no cost. I've recently sold the property, & simply rang to have the deeds returned to me. The 50p? I heard no more about it. I was simply told to forget it.

But having the deeds to a property is now all changed. They are now digitised?? & the paper deeds are destroyed. I've found this out this last week, as the property I am now buying only comes with a brief ownership form. It doesn't even show the age of the property!!!! That's how I found out from my solicitor when I asked the question.:mad::mad::mad:

originator

Blimey! Glad I,ve got mine in the bottom of the airing cupboard then

rosie383

Thank you to those who have replied. It does say in our T&C that we have to pay an 'admin fee' I think it was termed (or something similar). If he keep the mortgage open, then we don't have to pay the £99 fee at this point. I did ring them and query if we had to pay it and was told 'Yes, it's for all the legal work we have done for you during the life of the mortgage and to get the deeds.
Will look into Land Registry to see about deeds.

rosie383

Okay. Just been having a look at the Land Registry and it looks as if there are 3 sections of the title deeds available to download. Total cost would be £39.90.
So maybe if we pay the mortgage off, wait for a week or 2, then we could get the deeds ourselves. Is it worth talking to Santander and asking them if we get the deeds ourselves, do we still need to pay the admin fee?

originalmiscellany

I don't know if it's particularly relevant to you, but we have an offset mortgage which is currently at 0, and as it had a fixed length, say 20 years to run, we have the option to take the money back out should we move again, which is something we will consider when we make our "final" move into our "forever house", so we have kept our mortgage open. I thought we had to keep 1p in to keep it open but I was told that it's quite okay to have the balance on 0.

Not directly relevant to you but it could help someone else?

rosie383

Could be similar to what we have. We were on a flexible mortgage where we could make unlimited overpayments and they went into a savings pot which we could withdraw against if we needed to.