Moving Home

🤔What's different from buying your first home?

As a first-time buyer, you only have to worry about one transaction: yours. As a home mover, you've got two, selling your current place and buying the next one. They usually need to happen on the same day, which means coordinating two solicitors, two lenders, and often a chain of other buyers and sellers all moving on the same date.

On top of that, you've already got a mortgage. You'll need to decide whether to take it with you (porting), pay it off and start fresh, or do something in between. And you'll pay stamp duty at standard rates, not the discounted first-time buyer rate.

🚚Should you port your existing mortgage?

Porting means taking your current mortgage deal with you to the new property. Most modern mortgages are "portable", but porting isn't automatic. Your lender will reassess your finances, the new property, and current criteria before agreeing.

The main reason people port: to avoid early repayment charges (ERCs) on a fixed deal. If you're 18 months into a 5-year fix and you redeem the mortgage, you could pay 3 to 5% of the loan as a penalty, sometimes £5,000 to £15,000 or more. Porting sidesteps that.

The catch: if your new property costs more, you may need to borrow extra. That extra borrowing usually goes onto a separate product at whatever rate is available today, which might be higher (or lower) than your existing rate. You end up with a "split" mortgage.

Porting also isn't a guaranteed approval. Lenders treat it almost like a new application: they'll re-check your income, credit file, and the new property's valuation. If your circumstances have changed for the worse, they can decline.

📋Your stamp duty bill

Moving home means you pay standard stamp duty rates, there's no first-time buyer relief. In England and Northern Ireland, that's 0% up to £250,000, 5% on £250,001 to £925,000, 10% on £925,001 to £1.5m, and 12% above that. Scotland and Wales have their own rates (LBTT and LTT).

One exception: if you're buying a new home before selling your old one, you'll pay the 3% additional property surcharge on the new purchase. You can claim it back if you sell your previous main residence within 36 months, but you have to pay upfront and reclaim later.

Use the stamp duty calculator → to see exactly what you'll pay.

🔗Selling and buying together, the chain

A "chain" is what estate agents call the line of connected transactions. Your buyer is selling their place to fund yours; the people selling to you are buying somewhere else; and so on. A chain of four or five is normal. The longer the chain, the more risk: if any one transaction falls through, the whole lot collapses.

The two ways to break a chain are: (1) buy first, sell after using bridge finance or savings, or (2) sell first, then rent while you find your next place. Both have trade-offs. Buying first means risking two mortgages or expensive bridge interest. Renting in between means moving twice and paying rent on top of everything else.

⚠️When the chain breaks

Chains break for all sorts of reasons: a buyer's mortgage gets declined, someone changes their mind, a survey throws up problems, a divorce happens, or the seller at the top of the chain pulls out. When it happens, you have a few options:

Re-list and find a new buyer, slows things by 4 to 8 weeks but usually works.
Negotiate a price drop from your seller to keep the deal alive.
Use bridge financing to push through anyway (see next section).
Walk away and start over, sometimes the right call.

A broker who knows what they're doing will help you triage which option fits your situation. Don't make the decision alone in the heat of the moment.

🌉Bridge financing, useful but expensive

A bridge loan is a short-term loan that "bridges" the gap between buying your new home and selling your old one. Term is usually 3 to 18 months. Interest is high, typically 0.5%, 1.5% per month, not per year. So a £200,000 bridge for 6 months could cost £6,000 to £18,000 in interest plus arrangement fees on top.

When it makes sense: you've found your dream property and the chain has fallen through, but your old place will sell soon. The bridge buys you time. When it doesn't make sense: as a general "we'll figure it out" plan. Bridge debt that runs longer than expected gets very painful, very quickly.

⏱️How long does it actually take?

From the moment your offer is accepted to keys-in-hand, expect 8 to 14 weeks in a normal market with a short chain. Long chains can push that to 16 to 20 weeks. The mortgage application itself is usually the fastest part (2 to 4 weeks). The slow bits are the legal work (conveyancing) and waiting for everyone in the chain to be ready on the same day.

Start preparing as soon as you list your property, pull together your last 3 months of payslips and bank statements, check your credit file, and get an Agreement in Principle. That way, when an offer is accepted, you're ready to move fast.