Porting a mortgage

TJ12

We were going to port our small mortgage with the Halifax as we are planning on moving house. While discussing this at the Halifax the advisor also by law had to work out if it would be cheaper to end the existing mortgage and take out a new one taking into consideration the penalty fee of £597. On the new product there was no arrangement fee. He did this by using the porting figure which is more than the actual amount we owe.
Does anyone know if he should have used the porting figure or the actual amount we owe? I didn't realise he had done this until I came home and looked at all the paperwork.
Also why is there a difference between the porting figure and the actual amount owed please?

kingstreet

Option to redraw any overpayments before porting, so you can increase the amount you owe back to what it would be if the overpayments hadn't been made?

Nationwide allows you to do this if your mortgage started before March 2010, perhaps Halifax has the same option?

The options to consider would then be-

- no port, new product for whole mortgage
- port what's owed now, new product for increase in borrowing
- redraw and port, new product for lesser amount.