Halifax chasing us for review meeting. An opp to get us to pay more?

spleencheesemonkey

Amount remaining on Mortgage: £96,000
House valuation (Dec 06): £115,000
Nationwide's online property value calculator for today: £104,000

Since coming off the fixed rate in December 08 and going onto the SVR, my other half and me have continued to pay the same monthly payment amount as it was when it was fixed. (overpaying by about £90 per month)

Halifax (our current lender) have started to hassle us for a review meeting "to see if there's anything we can do". Is this just an effort to get us to fix at a higher rate that we're paying now? Is there anything they could do for us anyway as the value of the property has fallen leaving us with a high LTV ratio?

I know that interest rates can only go up from here, but is it worth waiting to see if the value of the property recovers somewhat before thinking about fixing again?
Is it likely that the number of more affordable mortgages (with higher LTV margins) will increase as the property market recovers?
I know nobody can really answer this next one, but I would appreciate your thoughts: how quickly will the interest rates rise again? Should we consider fixing when the rate we pay on SVR comes close to the rate we originally fixed at? or will it be too late by then?!

Any responses gratefully received.

maninthestreet

You are under no obligation to agree to a review meeting, assumimg you are up to date with you mortgage payments, and are not in arrears. Have you checked the Halifax website to see what deals they are currently offering?

spleencheesemonkey

All up to date and no arrears. Halifax website has nothing but extra cost for us at £999 arrangement fee on all of their fixed offers - on a mortgage of less than £100,000 is quite a bit of money. That's before we take into account the extra we'd be paying in monthly payments.

maninthestreet

spleencheesemonkey wrote: »

All up to date and no arrears. Halifax website has nothing but extra cost for us at £999 arrangement fee on all of their fixed offers - on a mortgage of less than £100,000 is quite a bit of money. That's before we take into account the extra we'd be paying in monthly payments.

That's what I thought would be the case. Just politely decline their requests.