Extending mortgage to buy leasehold?

AndyboyH

Hi all

So we!!!8217;re First time buyers, 18 months into a mortgage with the Halifax on a 5 year old leasehold home.

We!!!8217;ve just been offered the opportunity to buy out the freehold from Taylor Wimpey but we don!!!8217;t have anything in savings after moving and starting to set up to do it. Total price including quoted legal fees looks to be about £2500.

So we thought about extending the mortgage to do this. Except the spanner in the works is that the minimum extension Halifax will give is £10k - which seems a lot of extra money, and also mildly concerns us about how much it might increase monthly repayments (not to the point of not affording them, but we!!!8217;re just cautious about that side of things knowing the fixed term will expire in X months too and are keen to do things right really.)

What!!!8217;s the best approach to take? Is it just to run with taking the full £10k, pay out for the freehold, and then early repay any money left? Or are there better ways to do this?

Thanks all!

pl187

Can you not look at a loan or a 0% interest money transfer credit card? That way it will keep your mortgage payments the same. I'd recommend using eligibility calculators first though to ensure you'll get it before going through a full application.

prudential

You mean to buy the freehold (or perhaps extend the lease)? £2500 sounds very low for that... what's included?

AndyboyH

pl187 wrote: »

Can you not look at a loan or a 0% interest money transfer credit card? That way it will keep your mortgage payments the same. I'd recommend using eligibility calculators first though to ensure you'll get it before going through a full application.

Sadly not. Already applied for a loan, but as self employed now, they’re not keen.
Could put it on CC potentially (trying to both pay down and kill our CCs) but other stuff around on the web suggested it was a bad idea and bundling it in the mortgage was the way to go.

AndyboyH

prudential wrote: »

You mean to buy the freehold (or perhaps extend the lease)? £2500 sounds very low for that... what's included?

Definitely to buy freehold. Tailor Wimpey want £1200 for it, plus I went and got a solicitors quote of around £450, and budgeted some more for the unexpected surprises that would no doubt occur.

Sir_Robin

Buy it ! Before they sell it to one of the vulture companies that buy up freeholds who will then charge 20k