Help elderly mother by using mortgage reserve?

Glengowrie

Any advice on the following? I have a Barclays/Woolwich offset mortgage and part of this is a mortgage reserve, currently over £100K available to borrow if I wish. My mother is selling a flat and trying to buy another ground floor property. She accepted offers twice only to have the chain fail further along the line from her proposed buyer. I don't want her to lose the ground floor property and wonder if it would be sensible, or even affordable, for me to use the mortgage reserve to bridge the purchase till she finally sells. Any idea how much it would be to borrow say £105K if it took another 6 months to sell her flat? My offset mortgage rate is a wonderfully low 1.19% at present and the reserve borrowing would be at the same rate, I think.

kidmugsy

About £105 per month. Assuming that "the reserve borrowing would be at the same rate".

getmore4less

reserve is the same rate, why have you not got this money in a savings account?

seems reasonable option it will save costs and is the cheapest lending you will find.

Glengowrie

Thanks for the advice. I've never thought of taking the reserve and putting it into a savings account as I've always thought of it as an overdraft I didn't want to use. Seems stupid now not to take some of it out and put it in any account paying more than 1.19%. No doubt this is how banks make their money from dummies like me!

v1ckyt

Just worth checking the rate, as I have the same mortgage as you I believe, but the interest rate on the mortgage reserve is 4.99%, so I would suggest you check it out before you withdraw it and put it in a savings account.

getmore4less

v1ckyt wrote: »

Just worth checking the rate, as I have the same mortgage as you I believe, but the interest rate on the mortgage reserve is 4.99%, so I would suggest you check it out before you withdraw it and put it in a savings account.

If an offset then the reserve is just pooled with the rest of the accounts and the mortgage rate on the net ballance if there is something owing.

Very clear from the monthly statements