Can I move house with a mortgage?

Virtually all mortgage lenders allow you to move house during the term of the mortgage either by paying off the existing mortgage and taking out a new deal for your purchase, if you need one, or transferring the current arrangement to your new home.

If paying off your existing loan, you need to check if your current deal has a financial penalty for doing so early. This would be called an Early Repayment Charge in your mortgage documentation, but you can always ask the lender or your adviser.

Early repayment charges are most likely if you are in a fixed rate deal, but they could be attached to other arrangements too. You might decide to suffer the early repayment charge if a new lender would offer you a bigger mortgage or has an interest rate which is low enough to offset the charge.

Transferring the existing arrangement to a new house is called ‘porting’. This would involve a new assessment of your income and expenditure, credit history, and so on, to confirm that the mortgage remains affordable. Provided your lender is satisfied that the new property represents good security for the mortgage they will allow the transfer without early repayment charges. If needed, you can also ask for additional borrowing at the same time provided it fits the lender’s affordability calculation.