It's a pity you are with Danske, as other lenders would have given you a negative equity mortgage and you would not be subject to the Central Bank's lending requirements.
1) You should immediately pay your savings of €45k against your home loan. This will yield you a return of 4.9% tax free. There is no reason not to do this.
2) Not sure of the terms and conditions of your husband's share schemes, but cash in the hand now may be more useful to you. So probably hold off buying shares until you have the house issue sorted.
3) How much are your husband's shares worth at present? When can he cash them?
4) After setting your savings against your mortgage, your position will be:
House value: €240k
Mortgage: €215k
Equity: €25k
5) You will find it hard to get a mortgage to buy another house as you would need a 20% deposit under the new Central Bank rules.
Options
1) Stay where you are as long as possible and try to accumulate the 20% deposit required - this is financially the best option.
If you go for this, pay down the mortgage and switch to AIB. Do not touch KBC.
2) Sell your home and rent a suitable house.
This is probably the best option but it will take you longer to save for a deposit to buy a house.
Again, you should pay down the mortgage anyway with your savings. You probably should not switch lender unless you expect the sale to take at least 12 months.
3) Let out your home and rent a new home for yourselves.
The advantage of this is that you keep a bigger stake in the housing market, so that if house prices rise, your wealth will increase with the rise.
The downside is that you will have to eventually sell it if you want to buy another home. If you have tenants with a lease, it may be difficult to get them out when you want to sell it. You will get a better price while you, as owners are keeping it looking nice.
The investment property
How did your husband come to have this? Was it ever his family home?
It's a bit of a long shot, but you could try the following:
1) Sell the family home
2) Ask Ulster Bank for a tracker mover mortgage. In other words, you would sell the investment and move the mortgage to your new home.
If they agree to this...
- You keep your tracker although you will have to pay 1% more
- Because your investment property is in negative equity, you would be exempt from the Central Bank's requirement to have a 20% deposit.
It would be easier to get their agreement to this if you were living in the investment property as your family home.
Brendan