New mortgage deal with same lender - Will it require a revaluation?

Maelwys

Quick query, as I've come across a few differing views on this:

I bought my first house two years ago. I went with an independant mortgage broker who got me a nice two-year fixed rate with Barclays (in hindsight a tracker would have been slightly cheaper, but at the time the extra security was definitely worth it for me)

My mortgage has just come off its initial fixed rate onto a lifetime tracker. This tracker now has no early repayment fees, but a higher interest rate. It's within my means to continue payments on the tracker, but obviously I'd like to switch deals if I can get a better rate - especially since I'm no longer tied down by any early repayment charges!!

The best deals that I can find which are within my budget to reach involve lowering my LTV to 75% instead of its current 80%.

There are a lot of 75% LTV 2-year-fixed-rate deals that would easily save me 1.5k over two years. But they would also (i) have a low enough interest rate that I'd be better off putting any extra money into an ISA than using it to overpay the mortgage for the next two years and (ii) leave me no worse off after two years than where I am currently (very important!! I don't want to end up being locked in to a silly rate!)

The problem is that in order to hit this lower LTV, I'd need to throw an extra £2k at the current balance on the mortgage (This bit is doable. I currently have enough saved to pay this, plus a new mortgage arrangement fee and still have enough of a buffer left over to feel reasonably comfortable). However this assumes that any potential new lender would consider my house to be worth an equal or greater amount to what I originally paid for it two years ago.

I know swapping to a new lender would definitely involve a revaluation, and if they revalue it at a lower figure (even £5k lower) then it would make it unrealistic for me to try to hit 75% LTV.

But what if I took out a new deal with my existing lender? (Woolwich AKA Barclays)

Do lenders generally require a revaluation if you're just switching to another mortgage deal with them?

Do I stand a fair chance to being able to hit that 75% value or would I be better off sticking out the current mortgage for another year? (Being a new home owner I have no idea what revaluations entail, but my gut tells me any value arrived at by banks could be "conservative" compared to what an actual purchase price might be...)

Disclosure: House prices in my area have stayed roughly the same in the past two years. The asking price for my house (which I paid 128k for) was listed as "over 130k" two years ago. There are currently similarly-specced houses up for between £125 and £140k, with a few selling recently at around the £130k mark.

I have done some work on my house (getting good quality cavity wall insulation put in; topping up the attic insulation by hand using a mixture of fiber and solid stuff in order to bring it well above current standards whilst being able to walk and/or store stuff up there; fixing radiator system, etc) but nothing that I think would really add much in the way of "lender value".

Thanks in advance!

amnblog

Why not go back to your original broker and get their help. Barclays have some great rates at the moment but getting sensible advise on all options across the market is best.

Maelwys

amnblog wrote: »

Why not go back to your original broker and get their help. Barclays have some great rates at the moment but getting sensible advise on all options across the market is best.

Thanks,

This is currently the plan. I'm hopefully having an appointment with them next week- I'd certainly rather apply for a remortgage through them than through the bank directly.

I just wanted to see if this was something that was "common knowledge" (e.g. if a lender generally does/does not bother with property valuations for an existing customer switching deals; compared to a new customer coming as a fresh risk)

I've tried to be sensible and shopped around, checking the going mortgage deals and rates advertised on a price comparison sites such as MoneySupermarket. Whilst it's certainly possible that my broker may have one or two gems up their sleeve that I've not discovered, it's generally looking like 75% LTV deals would be worth switching for but 80% LTV deals wouldn't be (at least once mortgage arrangement fees are taken into account...)

Hence my query... I'm quite willing to go back and see the original mortgage adviser, I'd just rest a bit easier if I knew beforehand if it was at all likely that I could ask my current lender for a new deal without running a major risk of getting my house devalued in their eyes...

(This might or might not be a straightforward question, my lack of mortgage experience betrays me!)

Maelwys

Quick Update:

I spoke to a Barclays rep today and was advised that they do not need a revalue on a "product change" - if I wanted to swap to a new deal they would keep the currently-held value of the house unless I specifically ask them to change it (the rep actually suggested that I might want to ask them to increase their logged value from 128k to 130k!)

Will see what transpires next week with the Mortgage Adviser.