Early Repayment Charge on Bristol & West Buy To Let Mortgage

Dan29

I'm selling a BTL flat to buy a BTL house, and will be liable for £10k early repayment charge to Bristol and West unless I can complete on the new house on the same day the sale of the flat completes. Given how unlikely this is, has anyone with a B&W "portable" mortgage persuaded them to extend the timescale so it's possible to buy the new place within, say, six months of selling the old one, and get the early repayment charge refunded? I'm going to give them a call tomorrow and would be interested to hear if anyone has had any success doing this in the past.

Thanks
Dan

Ian_W

No experience at all and no expert but I'd be more than surprised if they agreed.

I've always understood portable means it ports from the property you're selling to another one you're buying, on the same day. Anything different and I would expect that mortgage to be discharged by the solicitor and a NEW mortgage applied for, for any subsequent purchase. So I wouldn't have thought B&W would be at all sympathetic, however soon afterwards you bought.

Still, all you can do is ask. If the answer is YES, I'd certainly be interested.

Dan29

Ian_W wrote:

No experience at all and no expert but I'd be more than surprised if they agreed.

I've always understood portable means it ports from the property you're selling to another one you're buying, on the same day. Anything different and I would expect that mortgage to be discharged by the solicitor and a NEW mortgage applied for, for any subsequent purchase. So I wouldn't have thought B&W would be at all sympathetic, however soon afterwards you bought.

Still, all you can do is ask. If the answer is YES, I'd certainly be interested.

Thanks Ian. Have done it before with a Halifax mortgage but that was residential not BTL. I guess they COULD take the view that they'd make more money in interest on the new mortgage than they would lose by refunding the early repayment charge, but I think it's unlikely in this case. As you say, all I can do is ask.

Cheers
Dan

MarkyMarkD

I don't know why you reckon it's so unlikely that you will be able to complete simultaneously. Thousands of people manage to complete simultaneously on their residential properties, so why is it any harder on a BTL? Surely it's easier, in fact, because you can leave the BTL property empty for a little while to facilitate the simultaneous completion if necessary?

You organise simultaneous completion by setting appropriate dates when you exchange contracts, and by not exchanging contracts on the sale until the purchase exchanges (or vice versa).

Ian_W

Dan Have a loo at THIS THREAD - post #2.
DoozerGirl, a regular poster, is saying she was allowed 3 months by her lender to port a BTL mortgage after the sale of the original property.

herbiesjp

Other lenders do indeed allow for the mortgage to be ported and ERC to be refunded if the original mortgage is put on a new property within 3 months - so worth a call to double check with B&W

Dan29

Sadly they say it does have to be on the same day, so I'll be trying to follow MarkyMarkD's plan..! I guess with my Halifax mortgage the T&Cs were different - can't remember now.

Thanks for all your help
Dan