virgin one account mortgage

sheppo

does anyone any experience of the virgin one account mortgage.i'm thinking of changing and would like to talk to people who have this sort of mortgage.

waveneygnome

Firstly, I don't believe you can get Virgin One Accounts any more. Since RBS took over the comapny, they are now called One Accounts.....which you can get.

I've had a Virgin One Account since 1998.

It was an excellent account, with good service.....but.......service has dropped gradually over the years....but more importnantly the interest rate policy is not transparent - you are on a variable rate (not tracker); which means The One Account (RBS) can change the rate to whatever they like. Please search this forum for 'The One Account interest rate' - and you will find a lot of unhappy people.

Personally, if you are looking for an offsett account which TRACKS the Bank of England base rate, then you'd be hard pressed to better First Direct. My sister has a FD offsett tracker and loves their customer service (FD are 24hr banking i beleive; The One Account are not).

I am biased: I am taking the One Account to the Financial Ombudsman Service over their interest rate policy.

Good luck with your choice.

HornyDevil

I'm another lover of First Direct, been a customer for 15 years and have never had a problem and their offset mortage is as good or better as pretty much any.

happywarmgun

Had one since 1999. For 10 years it was fantastic. Followed the BOE base rate change the day after, like a tracker. When the banks belly up they decided suddenly to stop doing that. Like the chap above I'm also taking them to the Ombudsmen over this - so my view is coloured.

That said, if you are signing up now, and under no illusion that you are signing up for something that isn't a tracker - then it is still a very good product if you are a disciplined person. The flexibility is absolute. You effectivley have an overdraft to the value of your mortgage and it is up to how quickly/slowly you shift it. A very weird thing the first time you go your cash machine and see that your balance is -120,000 but available balance is 40,000!

It has given me total financial freedom. I cleared my balance two weeks ago - and am effectivley mortgage free at the age of 35. I still have the account and have the security that I could go and withdraw the value of my house tomorrow if I needed to.

So - my gripe is that I signed up for a tracker and they reneged on that. If you're clear it isn't, and you have the discipline - the flexibility is the best of all the offsets - that said the trade off is you would get a better rate for a slighlty less flexible offset elsewhere...

kippygirl

Not sure that it has the same flexibility that it used to. Like many others, I signed up to the "just pay it off by the time you retire" promise. However, they've now been changing the Ts and Cs so they could potentially stop you paying it off as quick or slow as you want by introducing terms that permit them to check your income and adjust the facility amount or require you to stick to a particular repayment plan.

Quite possibly not legal to change it for people who signed up to a different deal but beware - for new customers, it certainly isn't the flexible product that it used to be.

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

I have done well with my virgin one account but not sure if you can get it now. The concept of a current account mortgage worked well for me but beware it need to be mastered! Do Not get one if you are tempted to spend! otherwise its great!