Getting rid of a London-sized Mortgage

FloppyDisk

I agree with you on chip-gate, and worst bit is that you didn't even get any chips! Did the friends apologise? Can you hunker down this week and save up some spends for another weekend and really enjoy it?

Tropically

I know! They are more my partner's friends. The one time I spoke them about hurting my feelings they weren't empathetic. I'm a Canadian who is into compassion and mindfulness (sorry if that causes anyone to groan!) so I am prone to being polite/nice and talking about feelings. We met with them at the pub and when I mentioned the chips, one person said, "You could go get them now and then come back!" My inner Canadian twitched but we just joined the group and there was no further discussion of chip-gate. We ate granola bars I had packed and then made a delicious supper when we got home.

But, I've done the maths and actually the month was pretty productive -

Salary: £2177.40
Into the joint account for house/bills: -£1000
Regular Savings: -£400
Leftovers: -£540.51

There is a slight difference in the maths because my phone, some charity, and transactions from January that were processed in Feb have thrown me out of line a bit.

All in all, saved £940.51 which is EXTREMELY good for me and this doesn't include the £424 set aside from the airbnb. Have ear marked £269.96 for hotels for our holiday and have banked £1094.55 (totally mindblowing!)

All of this is very good because my partner had the first round of redundancies today. He will be having a job role change, I've only just found out and don't know what it means yet. I do feel confident that we could live on my salary for a few months, I just really really hope that he can keep his job until after the wedding. It would be such an extra stress to be looking for jobs now.

try_harder

Fingers crossed he will be safe.

Well done with all the savings ,a great month all round

Tropically

Oh my, another month gone by so quickly. I didn't overspend but I definitely overextended myself in March with all the things I planned.

I am setting a new goal for April: enjoy being home. We are going to Somerset for wedding things over Easter. We are going to Iceland at the end of April. In between, I'm going to try and do NOTHING. Sweet nothing. OK, I've got 8 things in the diary but those are my only things. By comparison, I had 22 things in the diary for March.

michelle09

That sounds like a great set of plans! Doing nothing included.

Tropically

Gosh, I am lacking any long-term financial goals. We need to remortgage in July but I can't seem to make up my mind about anything.

• I applied for a dream job abroad. It would be doing what I am doing now except sometimes I'd have to stop to go count turtles in the Caribbean. I think that I have a 5% chance of getting it, my partner things I have a 95% chance of getting it. I would request that I would start in November which would be after we are married for a few months.
  
• If I got the dream job, we both could live with my sister and save on rent for probably up to 6 months.
  
• If I got the dream job, my partner would have to move and find a job too.
  
• We need to remortgage now, but would struggle to find a mortgage lender who would give us consent to let because we would have just remortgaged to a residential rate.
  
• If we went on a variable rate and then tried to get a buy to let, we'd struggle because my partner won't have a job when we first move.
  

I don't know if I should simply give up on the dream job and remortgage as normal. Compounded on that is the fact that I have an outstanding job offer, and interviewed for a third job a while ago. But to be honest, I don't know if I would take any of these UK-based jobs over my current one.

I have been speaking to a L&C mortgage broker about the situation and don't think he is listening or understanding. I don't want to give up on the chance to move abroad with an amazing opportunity. I also don't want to pay through the nose for what is just a remote possibility. I want him to find me a 5% fixed rate residential mortgage with the potential for a consent to let if I did get the job. Confusing.

To top it off, we are at the 66% LTV mark, and I was asking him about whether it would make sense to OP to get down to the 65% mark. We'd have to overpay £7k to get to that bracket, which could be possible if it's worth it. He kept telling me that it wouldn't make sense for us to overpay because we wouldn't save enough money on the interest to justify 'spending' £7k. I kept saying to him that it is not *spending* that money because it's not gone - it's now equity. He didn't seem to really get that. He was also pushing the mortgage protection payment insurance too much. I said I didn't want it 10+ times and was on the brink of hanging up on him.

His justification was that if we BOTH lost our jobs because we BOTH had long-term illnesses, then after two years of unemployment we would have spent our savings and THEN have to change our lifestyle. We weren't face to face or he would have seen how ridiculous I thought that was. If we both had long-term illnesses of course we would change our lifestyle. I'm not paying £75/month for MPPI!!

So I don't know what to do about the job situation, I don't know what to do about the remortgage situation and I'm also trying to plan a wedding. And there is still the possibility that my partner could be made redundant.

We have picked a honeymoon destination! I originally wanted to take 8 weeks off and travel south-east Asia but that's not going to happen what with all the above. I found super cheap flights to South Korea so we are going there for a week in September!! Woo! Years ago I bought guidebooks to go and planned out a whole trip, but couldn't justify it financially. I'm pleased that we will be actually going.

On the plus side, my partner got some hustle money from a gig, and we have another £500 Airbnb stay (21 nights).

Our mortgage is currently £293,983, no overpayments this year, but building up a good bank for once I know what is going on in my life.

Tropically

PS. flights to South Korea were only £350 each on special. Apparently food and transport is very cheap and there are always budget hotel options.

katep23

Tropically wrote: »

I have been speaking to a L&C mortgage broker about the situation and don't think he is listening or understanding.

I used L&C to remortgage recently as we identified the mortgage we wanted but it was broker only - L&C were dreadful!

The chap wouldn't listen to me when I explained that I knew what product I wanted and insisted on "recommending" the same product, but he couldn't tell me even the most basic details about overpaying.

He also managed to list our 4-bed 2 reception room detached house as a 2-bed 4 reception room semi which caused mayhem with the valuation and lead to a 2-month delay!

Would never use them again and that was for something "standard" so can imagine your pain when asking them to advise on something out of the ordinary.

Tropically

katep23 wrote: »

He also managed to list our 4-bed 2 reception room detached house as a 2-bed 4 reception room semi which caused mayhem with the valuation and lead to a 2-month delay!

Oh no!! :eek: That sounds very frustrating. I think they are great for people who don't have an understanding of mortgages, but not so great when you know what you are doing. He has done a better job lately, after we suggested he recommend a different type of product. It remains to be seen.

The job abroad has been promising me an interview since December, so yesterday I told them that we would be interviewing next Thursday. It worked, hahaha. So I'll know what we are doing soon.

It's hard to know what to value our house at.

We purchased it for £425,000, in London, at certainly a peak, but then we put in a gorgeous new kitchen, replaced the door and improved the energy performance of the house. There is a house that is on our road but it much poorer decorative condition on sale for £425,000 and a house sold last year for £425,000, also in much poorer decorative condition. There is a bigger house of the same style, but an extra bedroom, for sale at £500,000.

I assumed 2% house growth per year, and want to get £445,000 on the valuation. Hopefully it is realistic, but it might not make much of a difference as we are at 66% at £445k and 68% at £425k.

FloppyDisk

I used L&C for a remortgage to BTL with no other house owned and release of equity, plus a new mortgage bolted on a few weeks later. They have been faultless in what was quite a complex situation, can you ask for another advisor?

Hope next week's interview goes well, what an opportunity!