Yes. Being on a fixed rate doesn’t stop you moving: many mortgages can be taken with you to your new home, which is called porting, and if yours can’t, or porting isn’t the best deal, you can leave it early and pay any early repayment charge. Your lender can tell you which of those options applies to your mortgage.
Porting your mortgage
Porting means taking your existing mortgage deal on your current home and transferring it to the new one. Consumer group Which? says most mortgages are portable, though not all.
It isn’t automatic. When you port, you reapply for the deal, and your lender uses its current lending rules to decide, which may be different from the rules when you first borrowed. If your circumstances have changed, you might not qualify.
If you’re buying somewhere more expensive and need to borrow more, you’ll need to pass your lender’s affordability checks. The extra borrowing may come at a different rate, and there may be a fee to increase the loan, a valuation fee and an arrangement fee. If you’re moving somewhere cheaper and don’t need to borrow more, porting can be an attractive option, though you may still pay some fees, such as a valuation.
If you don’t port
You can leave your fixed rate early and take a new mortgage, paying any early repayment charge on your current deal. Which? explains that these charges are usually a percentage of the loan that falls over time: on a five-year fix, for example, it might be 5% of the balance in year one, 4% in year two and so on. The other option is to stay put until your fixed term ends.
It’s also worth comparing. Before asking to port, look at the rates on offer now: if your current deal isn’t the best for you, leaving and starting again may work out cheaper once every fee is added up.
Who to ask
Start with your lender, who can tell you whether your mortgage is portable and what an early repayment charge would cost. A mortgage adviser can then help you compare porting with a new deal. This page gives the general picture and isn’t mortgage advice.
If your dates don’t line up
If there’s a gap between leaving one home and getting the keys to the next, we can hold your furniture and boxes in between. Our minimum stay is two weeks and notice is normally 14 days, so a unit can cover a short gap as easily as a longer one. You can get a price online or call us on 0800 2545585.
Related questions
- Self storage between houses: when the chain slips
- What actually happens between exchange and completion
- Is self storage cheaper than moving to a bigger house?
Further reading