Halifax kept £25,000 for early repayment

We have been Halifax mortgage customers for a number of years, having been heavily courted by it at the time to migrate our mortgage, with the proviso that we simultaneously open a Halifax current account.

Just before the introduction of the new affordability rules, we fixed our mortgage rate firm in the knowledge that, if we did plan to sell, we would be able to “port” our current deal, as it was sold to us at the time.

Several months ago we accepted new positions in a school for our children, gave notice at their current schools and put our house on the market. As we had planned not to increase the size or length of our mortgage, we understood that we could “port” without early repayment charges.

We have now completed on our house sale and as part of the process we have paid the outstanding amount owed on the mortgage.

Halifax has retained an additional £25,064 as protection against the potential of the early repayment charge, knowing we had three months to find another property and “port” the mortgage.

Now we are being told we cannot port the mortgage due to “affordability” criteria.

Can you help? DB, SURREY

As you pointed out, your financial circumstances had not changed. You are on the same basic salary plus a bonus of more than before.

No amount of reasoning or correspondence from you to Halifax would get the bank to acknowledge that this was not you repaying your mortgage early.

No alternative which would reduce any of the early repayment charge was offered. This, you point out, was despite there being no caveat in the original mortgage agreement.

Meanwhile, the supply of the kind of houses you were