Porting a mortgage
Porting your mortgage involves transferring your existing mortgage loan, including the terms and interest rates, to a new property. Our experts can help explain porting and home mover mortgage options to you.
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What is mortgage porting?
Porting your mortgage isn't quite as simple as transferring your mortgage from one property to another. In reality, you port your interest rate, and your terms and conditions.
You actually use the sale of your property to pay off the old mortgage debt and then take out the same mortgage deal on a new property. Essentially reapplying for a mortgage with your existing lender.
The big advantage of portable mortgages is that you avoid early repayment charges when moving house before the end of the initial period of your mortgage.
Are all mortgages portable?
Most mortgages are portable, but not all. This should be made clear to you during the application stage by a Mojo mortgage advisor, but will also be in your contract.
If your mortgage isn’t portable, you’d need to remortgage in order to move home.
Can I port my mortgage?
It depends on your lender and your current circumstances. When you apply to port your mortgage, you’re effectively reapplying for your mortgage.
If you pass the criteria, you'll be able to port your mortgage - but keep in mind it won’t always be possible if either the lender’s criteria have changed, or your circumstances have changed, since you originally applied.
Why might I be declined when porting my mortgage?
As porting is treated as a new application – you can be declined if you’re unable to meet the lender’s current criteria. Some common reasons for this could include:
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Your income has gone down
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Your outgoings have gone up
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Your debts have gone up
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Your credit rating has dipped
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Your new property is 'unmortgageable' (which could be an unusual or non-standard construction property, have no kitchen or bathroom, for example or flooding issues)
Should I port my mortgage?
There are a few reasons you might want to consider porting your mortgage when you move home.
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Avoiding early repayment charges if you want to move before the end of the deal
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Avoiding the other costs of remortgaging, such as exit fees and arrangement fees
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It can be slightly quicker than a remortgage as your lender already has most of your information, bar any changes
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You have a competitive rate/repayment you’d like to keep
Porting a mortgage vs remortgaging with a new lender
If you want to move home and require a mortgage to do so, you only really have two options: porting or remortgaging.
Mojo's expert advisers can outline any more personalised benefits that may be applicable to your situation.
Porting a mortgage to a more expensive house
Most people tend to move to more expensive property, so if you port your mortgage you’ll also need to borrow more.
To do so you actually usually need to take out a second mortgage for the difference.This may, therefore, have a different rate and terms to your original mortgage. This also means that you'll have 2 mortgage deals, each with different early repayment charge periods, which can make remortgaging in the future more difficult.
In some cases, if you need to borrow more when you move, it can be easier to remortgage, as you’ll take out just the one larger mortgage to cover both your original and your new borrowing. Your Mojo mortgage advisers will be able to talk you through all the remortgage options available to you.
Porting a mortgage to a cheaper house
Porting a mortgage to a cheaper house tends to be a bit more straightforward. However, sometimes moving to a lower value property can increase the LTV of your mortgage - especially if you’re going for a much lower value property, or haven’t had your mortgage long, so still have a lot of your loan to repay.
For example:
If you have a £100,000 mortgage on a £200,000 property that’s 50% LTV
If you want to port the £100,000 mortgage to a property worth £120,000, that’s 83% LTV
So while you’ve not borrowed any more, the proportion of the property value you borrow on a lower priced home is higher - and a higher LTV represents more risk to the lender
However, you can often use money from downsizing your home to pay off some of the mortgage and reduce your LTV.
So while porting to a lower value property can be easier than porting to a higher value property, it’s not always possible. Our mortgage advisors will happily talk you through your options, however, and help you to decide the best path forwards.