Changing a mortgage before it starts

Ljc80_2

Good morning

Apologies if this is a basic question. I am potentially looking at moving house in the current months. 

Is it possible to apply for a mortgage now in case rates go up over next couple months. I believe I need to have a mortgage in principle to make formal offer on house, but is this an actual mortgage offer? 

If rates drop by the time things complete, probably Jan/Feb, is it possible to ditch it for another mortgage at that late stage?

Thanks

gih

We're in the process of moving. From my experience:

Decision in Principle (when house-hunting): no interest rate was mentioned on ours. It's not an actual mortgage offer.

Mortgage application: can only happen after your offer on a house is accepted (as far as I know). It is at this stage that you choose a specific product (e.g. 5 year fix with a particular interest rate). Our mortgage advisor told us that, if interest rates dropped before our completion, we could switch onto the product with better rate (e.g. 5 year fix with a better rate). We were told that we could switch right up to the day before completion.

This week (a couple of weeks after mortgage application) we received our mortgage offer, with the interest rate as it was on our application. Our completion date has not been set yet, but it is at least a month away I imagine. As rates have dropped on 5 year fixes, we will phone mortgage advisor and move to the 5 year fix with better rate.

We're with Nationwide, but imagine the above is fairly standard across most big banks.

Hope that helps.

RedFraggle

You can reserve a product at DIP with nationwide when done through a broker I think

https://www.nationwide-intermediary.co.uk/products/reserving-a-product