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As I understand it from ppl who've remortgaged, if you stay with the same provider and have paid all your repayments, they won't do an affordability check. This obviously means you loose the competitivity of the market, but you shouldnt' be overly concerned.
hugo7-
As I understand it from ppl who've remortgaged, if you stay with the same provider and have paid all your repayments, they won't do an affordability check.
I've remortgaged twice with my current provider (Santander). It's been done over the phone each time (and they didn't need to confirm that my wife - joint mortgage - was happy with it - I'm sure she could have done the same without them needing to speak to me), not even a question about affordability but then the rate has always gone down both times I've done this. Last one was done 3 months early and the money that saved covered most of the loan fee, so that was a very simple choice.
Fixed rate mortgages are still a gamble, it just becomes a timing gamble. The longer the term the higher the rate as the mortgage company is pricing in the expected uncertainty in rates. But it's still an absolute gamble as to what the rates will end up looking like in 5 years. 5 years could dump you out into a period of high interest rates whilst 2 years or 7 years not so much, who knows. If rates do start to head North whilst you're on the fixed rate then you need to have a plan of what to do when your fixed rate period ends as the jump in interest charges can be substantial.
Personally I find 5 year fixed rate deals the best trade off for us, but then I've got <10 years left on mine although I'll probably need to move to something different for the last 5 years as the ability to make overpayments would be quite limited in the final years as the capital is almost completely reduced.
Greenbank
^^ Still shitting it at the prospect of switching ours next summer with changing income since baby cyoa / mrs cyoa stopped working. Seeing as we've still made all payments without hitch presume they can't just say 'well you're earning less so you can't have it any more'? My concern is the gordon gecko in them will say 'sure you can have it but at 3000000pc' rendering it unaffordable/miss payments etc.