Intelligent Finance Mortgage Changes

SouthCoast

I am sure that IF would have taken very expensive legal advice before altering their T&C's.
Force Majeure springs to mind.

Six months notice appears reasonable to me.

Leon_W

Personally I think Lloyds Banking Group are acting in a totally underhand way. I have clients of mine who are on a great rate and who bought these mortgages because they were portable.

I also have clients who have paid their mortgages down to below £25k, would like to move in the future and will face allsorts of problems obtaining mortgages for small amounts, it can be done but at what rate ? Certainly nothing as good as they are on now.

It's not that Lloyds Banking Group can't port these mortgages, just port it and call it a Halifax mortgage, it's because they don't want to as the rates are probably hurting them.



Go for it Kiplin. Complain, and please keep us updated.

Kiplin

My son is called Leon hence the move from a flat to a place with a garden! I will do it over the weekend.

I would of thought they are breaking an agreement or is it ok to put in very vague statements in..........................subject to our lending T&C (meaning if we loose money we will with draw it!)

kparsons

My husband and I have encountered a worrying variation on this situation. We have been trying to move for quite a while and are now fortunate that we have a buyer and somewhere we wish to buy. My husband called IF in September (prior to receiving the April 2010 letter referred to). He was told that we had to start the paperwork of applying to port the mortgage before 1 November as that is when our discounted variable rate runs out (we remortgaged in Nov 2007 to an offset tracker). We thought, OK that's just about doable and have been trying hard over the last couple of weeks to get a deal sewn up. However, on calling again today we were hit with the bombshell that the paperwork should have been started at least 3 months prior to the 1st of November, and as that hasn't been done, we cannot port our mortgage at all. This is despite in the meantime having received the letter stating we have until April 2010 to port our mortgage. I don't see what difference it makes whether we are in our special discounted rate or at standard variable rate and cannot find any reference to not being able to port beyond the end of the discounted rate in any of the paperwork. Our original mortgage illustration states "This mortgage is portable. If you move house when Intelligent Finance is charging interest at a special rate, you can transfer the outstanding amount of the special rate loan for the remaining special rate period on the same terms to a new IF mortgage subject to certain conditions". Nowhere does it explicitly state what you can or can't do beyond the end of the special rate period. As it is midway through October we are obviously going to be moving outside our special rate period now. I have looked through the various versions of IF conditions and can't fathom how they can say we can't port beyond the special rate period - particularly since the letter recently received says we can port until April 2010. I quote "You can take your Intelligent Finance mortgage with you if you apply before 8pm on the 1st April 2010 provided your loan amount is less or stays the same". We understand that beyond 1 Nov we can't port with special rate (we knew that was ending anyway), but between 1 Nov and 1 April why can't we port with our standard variable rate? The letter states if you port after 1 April you can choose to remortgage to an alternative mortgage product - this implies therefore that up to 1 April you stay on your existing mortgage product. We do not want to increase our loan. Can anyone help us at all with advice on this situation? (Apologies for the long post.)

kparsons

Latest on our situation - they now say we have to be moved into the new house by 1 November (before the end of our special rate) in order to port our mortgage. We are not allowed to port our mortgage beyond the end of our special rate period. In our opinion, it is not at all clear from IF's communications that you can't port beyond the end of the special rate and we have started a complaint process. We would be interested to hear if others are in similar situations.

timple

I have an IF offset mortgage with a lifetime tracker. I got it in early 2007 on the understanding that it could be ported if I moved house. What the heck is the point of a lifetime mortgage otherwise?

Now we are told we can't port it. Perhaps they have a point if they say you can't borrow any more but not if you simply want to sell your house and buy another and keep the same loan outstanding.

To me this is just the same as people being told that endowments were "guaranteed" to cover their interest only mortgage and is a case of changing the goal post to suit changed market conditions.

Who should I complain to? The financial OBman or the FSA?

deedee71

I'm wondering what will happen when my deal ends in 2011 and the interest rate goes to the SVR. Do you think we will see the SVR creep up and up, forcing us into switching to another lender?

To be honest I'm not sure what other lenders' SVRs are at the minute.....IF is currently 2.5%.

tsmiller62

Hi guys,

My situation is slightly differnt in that I am not bothered about taking my rate but if I move before my 5 year tracker is up I have to pay massive redemption charges. So making sure that it was portable when we took it out because we intend to move before the 5 years were up was pointless. We are no trapped in this house until the special deal expires.

I do not see the point in this as I will still have this rate for 5 years whatever house I am in.

tsmiller62

Deedee71,

I have search for all the threads you have posted on but I cannot find these links you referred to in the other post. Can you please advise how I find all the links.

Thanks
Toni

getmore4less

tsmiller62 wrote: »

Hi guys,

My situation is slightly differnt in that I am not bothered about taking my rate but if I move before my 5 year tracker is up I have to pay massive redemption charges. So making sure that it was portable when we took it out because we intend to move before the 5 years were up was pointless. We are no trapped in this house until the special deal expires.

I do not see the point in this as I will still have this rate for 5 years whatever house I am in.

Portable usualy means no ERC.