We want to port our mortgage to a cheaper property

I won’t be working as much, so will we end up with cash in our bank if we do this?

Q We live in London and want to port our mortgage to a cheaper property. We bought our house for £444,000. The original mortgage was £333,000 and we now owe just under £320,000.

If we wanted to buy a house for £400,000 or £385,000, would we actually get cash in the bank when we sell our current house? I won’t be working as much so we’d like more savings in the bank and less of a monthly mortgage outgoings.
I am quite confused about the process and was wondering if you could shed any light.
CH

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How to prepare your garden before selling your home Nottingham Estate Agents

Malcolm Button, Senior Estate Agency Manager at Aberdein Considine, gives some top tips for ensuring that outside space looks fresh and cared for Ensuring that your property looks fantastic indoors is always important but it’s crucial to spare a thought for your garden, which during the cold winter months can often become neglected. To help […]

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Kevin McCloud and investing in local ventures | Letters

Judy Eames on the news that investors in the Grand Designs presenter’s property firm could face big losses

You report (Grand Designs’ McCloud faces property nightmare, 23 August) that shareholders could make big losses after being promised big returns by a property company run by Grand Designs’ Kevin McCloud. I’ve lost count of how often this has happened. For some it’s loss of gambling money; for others life savings are involved. In the McCloud HAB case, the risks were flagged up in these pages in January 2017. How many investors read the financial pages and heed the advice?

Localised small-scale cooperative ventures are more appropriate for many investors. A while ago I made a small investment in a local solar energy development, for environmental reasons and not expecting large returns. But it has done well. A regular feature about investments in such projects would be a great help to readers like me.
Judy Eames
Aston, Oxfordshire

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Animal magic: garden tips from pet owners

It’s amazing what gardeners can learn from keepers of exotic species

As someone who has spent a lifetime fixated on horticulture (as a kid I used to stay up late reading the RHS Encyclopaedia under my covers with a torch), I thought I had a pretty good grip on how to grow plants. But there is always a surprise in store.

Two years ago, I wandered into an exotic pet exhibition while on holiday in the Netherlands. I was blown away by the spectacular horticultural installations being made by collectors of poison dart frogs, praying mantises and colourful land crabs. I couldn’t fathom how they managed to create thriving colonies of velvety moss or immaculate living walls dripping in orchids. And, quite frankly, I felt frustrated that I only recognised about half the plants.

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Animal magic: garden tips from pet owners

It’s amazing what gardeners can learn from keepers of exotic species

As someone who has spent a lifetime fixated on horticulture (as a kid I used to stay up late reading the RHS Encyclopaedia under my covers with a torch), I thought I had a pretty good grip on how to grow plants. But there is always a surprise in store.

Two years ago, I wandered into an exotic pet exhibition while on holiday in the Netherlands. I was blown away by the spectacular horticultural installations being made by collectors of poison dart frogs, praying mantises and colourful land crabs. I couldn’t fathom how they managed to create thriving colonies of velvety moss or immaculate living walls dripping in orchids. And, quite frankly, I felt frustrated that I only recognised about half the plants.

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Five quirky homes including where Steven Spielberg made film history

Feast your eyes on these beauties.

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Summer’s lofty sunflowers bring colour and joy | Allan Jenkins

Sunflowers can charm as swiftly as they grow, and are especially loved by kids, bees and birds

I came late to sunflowers. I didn’t love them much as a child. Too big, maybe too one-note. And at first I was concerned they might be too dominant for the allotment, leech necessary nutrients from food plants, block much-needed light. But that was then.

The shift was swift. There is a photo of the early plot with Howard and his young daughters where the girls look like something from Rousseau, as though lost in a sunflower forest. And it was through them and other children I discovered my own late love. We worked for a time with a school gardening club, encouraging primary-age kids to grow together. It was the wonder on their faces at how fast their flowers thrust that made sunflowers irresistible.

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