Owning your own home

You can ask for an advised mortgage with your bank, that way you'll chat with a financial adviser who will be able to choose the right mortgage with the products they have, you may find that the only flexible product with no ERC would be the standard rate. Another option would be to get a long term mortgage that is 'Portable', so you could sell your flat and move that mortgage with preferential rate to a house, if that makes sense. Just an idea.

Interesting. This is with Bank of Ireland. I don’t want to sign another long term as I’m sick of this flat and want to move to a house. So I need something flexible. Can they put me on a tracker with a less bonkers rate?

As above, the closest thing you get to flexibility is porting which can be a bit of a ball ache in itself.

If I were you I'd consider a short term fixed deal, i.e. two years, enough time to get back in to work and get the place sold.

Alternately, if you think you can get the place sold and get back in to work in say nine months, compare the up-front costs to remortgage (they might not even be any) + the early repayment charge should you sell the place in the fixed term vs. the (additional) cost of being on the default tracker deal for nine months.

You have an annoying fiddly situation there, but there are options.

I was in a similar position earlier this year - the option that made the most sense for me was to go with a tracker mortgage with no early repayment charge (was with Santander).

Since it could be closed at any time and rates were unlikely to massively jump in the short term, it worked out well.