Life After the Mortgage

boingy

We used to have a Virgin One account as our mortgage. Same deal as the FD Offset one. It basically behaved like a huge overdraft facility and you gradually work at paying it off, helped by your salaries and savings temporarily reducing the amount of interest. You can pull money back out of the account at any point, subject to the limit, so theoretically you could wait until almost the end of the term then withdraw the entire mortgage sum, although I suspect they might phone you up with some important questions if you do so! It's not a mortgage style that suits everyone but if both partners are financially disciplined it can make a real difference to how quickly you can pay off your mortgage and it worked for us.

I used to joke to my wife that near the end of the term I would withdraw all the money and waltz off into the sunset with my new girlfriend. And then I thought "Wait. My wife might be planning the same thing!".

But back on topic. To the OP I would say take a holiday and don't rush into anything. Then get your pensions sorted, but remember you can't get at that money until you are 55. I'd advise against the BTL route unless you are prepared to weather the ups and downs. Mortgage costs are going up and rents are going up so people defaulting on the rent is also going up. There is also a never-ending series of new laws/rules handing tenants more rights and, consequently, taking rights away from landlords. If you end up with "bad" tenants you can end up with six months or more of missing rent before you can get them out and probably a repair bill before you can let the property again. It's no surprise that so many private BTL landlords are selling up.

carboot_karaoke

Thank you everyone for the advice.  

The general consensus seems to be take a holiday   and increase pension and saving contributions. I'm going to do all three 

I would love to get a BTL in the future but more as our "downsize house" earlier than we need it (l know buying and selling costs a fortune) The idea is our children could rent it as needed  They have cheaper rent but look after the home and cover the overheads. Then eventually when they're settled we sell our existing house and move into the rental.  By this time the mortgage should be paid or we can use money from the sale to clear it.  

solidpro

Ok just saying you couldn't do that through a BTL via ltd company (the most profitable/tax efficient way to own a BTL) because you'd be personally benefitting too much from the company.