Looks like the Bank of England has kept interest rates steady at 5.25%. There was a drop only recently so I wasn’t expecting them to drop any further, but like anyone with a mortgage, I would have minded too much if they had gone down a bit more.
Speaking about mortgages, I did have an interesting experience yesterday. My mortgage is with Abbey and after my 2 year “special deal” my interest rate had risen to their Standard Variable Rate (SVR) last year, which is slightly more than 2% above base rate. As it’s good practice to do, I was ready to switch mortgage to a new mortgage, but in October offered me a 0.04% above base rate deal, which I thought was pretty good. In January this year, I noticed that my mortgage repayments hadn’t dropped so I phoned up to see what was happening. They acknowledged that there had been a problem there end, they would sort it out and backdate the mortgage switch, giving me a refund on the extra interest I had paid.
Yesterday, I noticed that my mortgage payment STILL hadn’t dropped, so I phoned them up again. Once again they acknowledged that there was no problem with my application, but that “the team that was handling my case, no longer existed”. Wow! This was 6 months down the line and they STILL hadn’t managed to effect a change that couldn’t really have taken more than a few minutes! I can only say I was NOT impressed!
Anyone else had any mortgage woes they would like to share?