First Direct Offset Tracker?

straddie

Yes FD will reserve up to 6 months in advance. We reserved ours back in July and it's not due to start until next month.

lisyloo

Im just wondering whether a few of their people on the phone were mis-informed about the 0.49% offer and mistakenly mentioned fees simply because some of their other products have them.

I checked last night and my key facts say £149 closing fees.
This isn't a recollection of a telephone conversation, it's down there in balck and white.

These are binding.

Personally in the scheme of things this makes no difference, but I can understand that for smaller mortgages the £999 could be a problem.
I reckon I'm saving between £3K and £4K on the 5.49% deal but for each case you need to DO THE SUMS. It's as simple as that.

Locoblade

lisyloo wrote: »

I checked last night and my key facts say £149 closing fees.
This isn't a recollection of a telephone conversation, it's down there in balck and white.

These are binding.

Personally in the scheme of things this makes no difference, but I can understand that for smaller mortgages the £999 could be a problem.
I reckon I'm saving between £3K and £4K on the 5.49% deal but for each case you need to DO THE SUMS. It's as simple as that.

Looks like mine is certainly slightly different then because my offer document lists the fee of £999, but specifically says closure fee £0 and lists no other fees. Maybe I slipped the net somehow!

Completely agree with you though, you can only work out if one or other is beneficial when you have all your mortgage info to hand and once you've decided how long you're likely to stay on the product. Id say for most though, if you're unlikely to be on it for more than 2 years or so, then the no fee would be the better bet unless you have a mortgage over ~£180-200k, but thats a very general statement.

samizdat

Locoblade wrote: »

The change could explain the £99 valuation fee anomoly but my mortgage offer certainly doesn't mention anything about any exit charges etc, which have also been mentioned previously. Given that nobody seems to have been charged anything yet (early days I guess) Im just wondering whether a few of their people on the phone were mis-informed about the 0.49% offer and mistakenly mentioned fees simply because some of their other products have them.

Hi Locoblade, I can confirm that my mortgage offer explicitly mentioned a £149 exit fee but I did not pay for my valuation, which did require a visit from a surveyor. I did not know about the exit fee at the time I posted to you (in another thread) about the breakeven point in relation to the 5.79% versus 5.49% decision because I had not yet received the offer documents.

rp8049

Ok, good news on the reservation period then. Will get to it this evening

rp8049

Well called up last night, spoke to a very helpful lady, and an hour later, I've got the key facts in the post and until Tuesday to accept so very happy with that. And already with the rate cute, I'll be paying £60 less a month than I was looking at with 5.79

Thanks for all the advice and help guys, much appreciated. Here's to rates going down towards 3% next year

clivek

5.29 now !!

They got my documents last week! Just waiting for a valuation now!!

Fingered crossed i get the go ahead!!

Locoblade

samizdat wrote: »

Hi Locoblade, I can confirm that my mortgage offer explicitly mentioned a £149 exit fee but I did not pay for my valuation, which did require a visit from a surveyor. I did not know about the exit fee at the time I posted to you (in another thread) about the breakeven point in relation to the 5.79% versus 5.49% decision because I had not yet received the offer documents.

My first negative experience with FD - I sent my offer document back to them nearly 2 week ago, and they claimed to never receive it so they sent out new documents. Suprise suprise, the "copies" they've now sent me have the £149 closure fee listed, so they've changed what they originally offered me! Cheeky fookers :rolleyes:

Luckily we received 3 copies of the original (one for each party plus one to be returned to FD), we didn't actually need new documents sending out, so we'll just sign another one of those originals and send it back via recorded delivery. :cool:

ncooper1974

my only 'negative' experience is that I want a FD base rate tracker, but they are only availble for remortgage.
as I've got no mortgage, I have to go onto their SVR. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent rate at 5.5%, but they can raise it anytime they want, whereas with the tracker I know they can't

Locoblade

There's a regular (non offset) tracker you could have though isn't there, which is +0.99%, that's not limited to remortgages I don't think?

It's not uncommon to have different deals for new customers / old customers, first time buyers / remortgagers though, so I wouldn't say its a negative against them personally, they're just targetting their products in the area of market they want to deal with.