Can I change term without remortgaging?

giggsy07

Hi all,

My wife and I took out a joint mortgage to purchase our first house back in September 2012.

We purchased our home for £205k with an 80% LTV over a 35 year term. Using the Nationwide calculator, our house value is £250k, and so we therefore have approx £85-90k equity in the house if it were to be sold today and the mortgage of approx £160k repaid.

We have since moved off the initial deal, initially on to the standard rate of Nationwide, and they then moved us on to a cheaper deal without us even asking. We have never missed a payment.

Since we purchased our home, we have had 2 children (3 year old and 6 month old) and my wife has now given up work to be a housewife. I maintain all of the household bills and mortgage, etc. on my single salary and bonus.

I would ideally like to move to a shorter repayment period, say 25 years rather than 35, and I think I could do this without changing the monthly payment which I have no problem paying. My issue is, that with my income and the associated outgoings, plus having 2 dependent children and a dependent wife, I would simply not qualify for a mortgage at all, let alone the one we are currently on, despite being able to comfortably cover the monthly payment. This would presumably also apply if wanting to remortgage.

Is there any way of changing the term of the mortgage without going through the full remortgage process and all of the associated affordability checks?

Essentially, I want to pay roughly the same but over a shorter period of time, taking advantage of the better rates available.

Many thanks in advance for any assistance/advice.

Regards
giggsy07

amnblog

You simply overpay what you have within the limits set by the lender Giggsy.

AnotherJoe

As amnblog says, simply overpay each month. The other benefit to this is, you aren't locked in to the higher repayments as you would be if you remortgaged. Just check what the maximum amount you can repay is per year in case there are penalties.
Also, you may find that nationwide reduce your monthly payment each time you overpay in an effort to keep the mortgage length the same. You can either ask them not to do this or just increase the overpayment every now and again to compensate, it all comes to the same thing in the end.

beecher2

Or you could save the equivalent of your overpayments if you can get a savings rate higher than the interest rate you are paying, and then overpay a chunk.