Santander and negative equity

Mrs-Ash

Does anyone have any experience of re-mortgaging or moving house when in negative equity on a Santander mortgage?

We bought for £105k 6 years ago (at the peak of the market).
We still owe c.£99k
Market value is c.£85-£90k

On last request Santander would not let us change deals, remortgage or port mortgage to a new house.

I am going to book an appointment with them to ask what our options are.

We are desperate to move (need a bigger house for growing family), ideally by taking advantage of the help to buy scheme so need to sell ours.

Will they let us take the shortfall and pay back via a loan?

If we wanted to tent ours out would we be able to change mortgage?

Any experience/advice welcomed.

Thank you

Keekles

When in negative equity it's difficult to do anything is the blunt truth behind it.

If they won't allow porting, remortgaging or any similar changes, the simple fact is you owe £100k to Santander and even if you sold at 90k, you're still short of that. I would doubt they would accept a personal loan as opposed to a mortgage for the remaining £10k but probably something you can only get a definitive answer from by asking them direct.

If you were given the option - how would you fund a new house purchase?

100% mortgages just don't exist at present and even if you had 5% aside as a minimal deposit, the loan would be a strain on your income and therefore likely prove unaffordable.

In order to rent a property out, you'd likely need 25% equity and would require re-mortgaging with Santander regardless, so I don't think this is going to be an option for you.

Hate to be harsh but in my experience, I'd say your hands are tied at this point. You really need to make an effort to overpaying what you can every month to build equity and open up your options.

Thrugelmir

If you can afford to move then I assume you have savings. As an initial step you should start paying down the mortgage to save money.

If you can afford a larger mortgage then overpaying should be an easy objective to achieve.

Onus is you to find the solution not the lender.