Remortgaging unencumbered property

lily1967

Hi, newbie here looking for advice on remortgaging our current property (now mortgage free, It's valued at around £450k) to enable us to buy our next property (downsize, it's valued at £285k). We'd be planning to sell this main property and move into our downsize property within 18 months to avoid the 3% additional home charge (we are in Scotland). To secure the property time is of the essence (there's already a fair bit of interest) and we're not ready to go on market immediately (family reasons). As we have so much equity in this property I thought we'd get a better rate remortgaging this rather than having to take out a high LTV on the next one - and using a fair amount of our savings as a deposit/fees (we paid our mortgage off 10 years early rather than save lots in a low-interest account, so whilst we have some savings I don't want to raid the lot). Spoke to nationwide our previous lender who are happy to remortgage this so we can blow the lot on a yacht or a holiday but not if we tell them it's to buy another property and that we wil pay the mortgage off when we sell this. Advice? Is my plan even possible - or is there a better more cost effective way to fund the purchase?