Abbey overpayments

Heth_2

We are completing on our house next week, and so far don't really know how to overpay our abbey mortgage.
When we applied the woman muttered something about £500 being the minimum overpayment but that isn't stated anywhere in the mortgage offer. It says if we want to overpay and the money to come off the loan (rather than being used for future monthly mortgage payments) we have to do it by chq, but no minimum stated.
Does anyone know if we can overpay by really small amounts by chq then?
I wanted to 'round up' our mortgage payment by about 20 quid a month, as I don't think we would really notice the difference and it would make a small difference to the mortgage.

BRI_H

I was told the same thing you can overpay 10% of the outstanding balance in each year and mininum payment of £500

Floxxie

I just had to register so I could join in with this one! Have been reading lots of posts but have finally found one that I understand!!

I spoke to Abbey last week as I have a two year tracker with them; I can make capital repayments of 10% a year but have to phone them to tell them when I am making a repayment and I also request that I want the monthly amount kept at a similiar amount but the term reducing.

Anyway last week I phoned up to make a small capital repayment and to moan about the fact that my monthly repayments had gone down so I was therefore paying less in a year.

The very kind woman then explained what I should be doing.

Firstly the 10% capital repayment is fine; whatever the outstanding balance is at 1st January, you can pay 10% of it during the year with £500 being the minimum amount you can make.

Now the bit that had passed me by - the monthly amount that you pay back can be altered as long as you do not pay off the whole of your mortgage within your agreed product term i.e I currently pay £735 and I am tied in for 2 years with a mortgage of £113k. I can increase my monthly payments to say, £1000 and I would not incur any penalties because I will not pay the £113k within the two years. I can also make the 10% capital repayments on top.

The woman did make a comment of 'everybody thinks we try to make it difficult for people to pay off their mortgage' and given the longwinded way I have to make capital repayments, I can why. However now I have this information, life is so much easier! I just have to write to advise them that my monthly repayment is altering.

If your are in doubt about whether your mortgage product allows you to do this, then give them a call.

P.S. Forgot to mention that you can make capital repayments as a BACS transfer; Phone Abbey and get their sort code & account number and make a transfer from your online bank.

mountainofdebt

Heth wrote:

We are completing on our house next week, and so far don't really know how to overpay our abbey mortgage.
When we applied the woman muttered something about £500 being the minimum overpayment but that isn't stated anywhere in the mortgage offer. It says if we want to overpay and the money to come off the loan (rather than being used for future monthly mortgage payments) we have to do it by chq, but no minimum stated.
Does anyone know if we can overpay by really small amounts by chq then?
I wanted to 'round up' our mortgage payment by about 20 quid a month, as I don't think we would really notice the difference and it would make a small difference to the mortgage.

last year.

The way it was explained to me was that any amounts under £500 would not come off the capital directly but would reduce the capital that was attracting interest.

The reason I think you have to make any capital repayments by cheque is that in the covering letter you have to state whether or not you want to reduce the term of the mortgage and keep the monthly repayments the same or reduce the monthly repayments and keep the term the same (the later I guess being useful if you need to reduce your monthly outgoings for whatever reason)

As a matter of interest I went to being paid weekly at the end of the year and started to pay my mortgage off weekly - paying 1/4 of the monthly amount each week. Have just had our 2005 mortgage statement (I know - quick of the mark aren't they!) and the payments I made during December in respect of the January payment are shown as a credit earning the same rate as the mortage so I consider that I am offsetting my mortgage for 3 weeks
each month.

So say my mortgage is £425 pm and I have paid them £300 in total before the dd run starts. On the due date they will collect £125.

Another way around the problem would be to set up a standing order rather than a dd - which means then they get the extra payment whether they like it or not!


hth

77Sparrows

I wanted to pay off some of our mortgage so asked Abbey by email and received this reply in August 2008: ".............To pay a lump sum off your mortgage please send your cheque to us at:

Abbey;
PO BOX 287;
Stockton on tees;
TS17 6QQ.

The cheque need to be made payable to 'Abbey PLC' and on the back of the cheque the mortgage account number has to be printed along with the words - 'Capital Repayment'.

You should also be aware that the minimum amount is £500.00 and you can pay 10% of the balance each year without incurring an early repayment charge. ...."

The repayment charge may or not be correct but at the current time with mortage interest at 7.09% and savings interest much lower! it is worth any charge. We enclosed a covering letter to make it clear what the enclosed cheque was for and a week or so letter received confirmation.

www.winter-hats.co.uk

PsychoPrincess

Hi

My mortgage is with Abbey, and as with some of the posts above, I was told that while within the fixed rate period I can overpay by a maximum of 10% per year. (10% of the outstanding captial as at January 1st of that year.)

I was told to send a cheque made out to myself, with the mortgage account number and the words 'capital repayment' on the back, and to attach a covering letter stating whether to reduce the monthly payments, or keep them the same and reduce the overall term.

I was never told of any minimum limit, so I have been sending them cheques left, right and centre for any amount! The biggest was £250, but all the others were for less.

After each cheque has been received and processed, they send me a confirmation letter, whcih also states the new outstanding capital balance, and the revised end date of the mortgage (I have chosen to reduce the overall term.)

Amarillo

Oh bother ! I sent my first cheque to Abbey recently for £464.50 as they didn't mention the £500 minimum when I rang and they only said to send a letter to state it was to be paid off the capital, which I have done. I didn't tell them to keep the monthly payment the same as she didn't mention that bit. Does that mean that they will collect a lower amount next month to take into account the bit of capital repayment that has happened ? I should have searched this forum before sending the cheque !!! I was told the same as Psychoprincess about making it payable to myself with "capital repayment" and the mortgage number on the back.

zebedy

Hi, Can i join in on this one? I have an Abbey mortgage that is a tracker for 2 years.
I was told i can make overpayments up to 10% with no minimum. I can either do them as overpayments or as capital repayments to reduce the overall term and keep my monthly payments the same (I do the latter). I have done some over £500 but lots that were under and never had an issue

I started doing them by cheque but despite bold capitalised wording on the covering letter saying capital repayment to reduce overall term and keep monthly payments the same, they still action them as overpayments and drop the monthly payment so each month I had to phone them and get them to correct it.
I then changed to making these capital repayments by BACS but still have to phone 4 days later and confirm i want them to be capital repayments and not to reduce my monthly payments.
I might try doing them by cheque again and writing capital repayment on the back of the cheque.
I get a confirmation letter about a week later telling me the new loan amount and new term

Another good thing with Abbey is you can make your normal monthly payment by cashback credit card. You have to phone up about 5 days in advance of your usual direct debit and explain that as a one off you want to cancel the direct debit for that month only and pay by credit card (i use eggmoney 1% cashback). It gets charged as a purchase so you get your cashback. You can keep doing this as a "one off" every month

Amarillo

My attempt failed miserably. Had a moment of panic when I looked at my bank statement. Finally found the mortgage payment but Abbey have taken the £462 off the November payment so it has all gone wrong. Am going to try with two lots of £462 this month and see if it works, fingers crossed.

*jobags*

Thanks for this - please let us know how you get on next month!

Does anyone know if it is possible to have on line access to an Abbey Mortgage? I am probably going to remortgage next month from Northern Rock (where I have on line access to my account) to Abbey. On line access just helps in checking that they have applied overpayments correctly

Thanks

Jo

Sunny_Donny

*jobags* wrote: »

Thanks for this - please let us know how you get on next month!

Does anyone know if it is possible to have on line access to an Abbey Mortgage? I am probably going to remortgage next month from Northern Rock (where I have on line access to my account) to Abbey. On line access just helps in checking that they have applied overpayments correctly

Thanks

Jo

Hi Jo
You need to phone the mortgage centre for abbey - and just tell them you want to make overpayments on your mortgage and ask for their sort code and account number. The reference you use is your mortgage number.
It is very easy to set up.
I overpay as and when I can as part of the payment a day challenge on debt free wannabee and also mortgage free wannabee on this forum. I have agreed with Abbey to increase my direct debit by £17 a month and overpay extra as and when I can.
I have to call them on monday as got my letter telling me they have reduced it with the new interest rate, but I want it back where it was and maybe a couple of pound more!!