Sunnydays tiny steps

sweetserendipity

Sunnyday wrote: »

One thought, i`m not sure if the policies are still on record as being attached to a mortgage or not - hopefully not but if i get a letter back asking about it i`ve no idea who to get in touch with :eek:

Sunny, any update on this??

We've been thinking about cashing our endowment in, it hasn't been linked to the mortgage for a few years & I'm pretty sure we didn't notifiy them when we changed, wondering if we should have done??

I know that if we do cash it in, we'll have to look at alternative life insurance/assurance (??) cover.

Sunnyday

sweetserendipity wrote: »

Sunny, any update on this??

We've been thinking about cashing our endowment in, it hasn't been linked to the mortgage for a few years & I'm pretty sure we didn't notifiy them when we changed, wondering if we should have done??

I know that if we do cash it in, we'll have to look at alternative life insurance/assurance (??) cover.

Nothing to report up to now i`m afraid, the postman hasn`t delivered anything to get excited about and i`ve checked the bank balance this morning and there`s nothing extra in there.

We never told the endowment people anything at all so they wouldn`t know about that mortgage no longer being linked, that said i would have expected to hear something by now if it was gong to be a problem.

I haven`t bothered getting any more life insurance tbh, my pension at work pays out a meagre amount on death in service so should almost cover the balance I`m tempting fate now and will probably drop dead any moment

DH has a small life insurance policy and i`m not really sure why we took this out. The idea is once the mortgage is paid off we shouldn`t really need any as the most risky thing will have gone IYKWIM

Once the mortgage is gone his life insurance will be cancelled and we can save the premiums. I know that some people like to have some insurance regardless but in my opinion if there are no big debts to consider then whats the point in paying out to them every month. Just my opinion though.

If the endowment has a large amount of insurance built into it and small premiums then it just might be better to keep it but i would weigh up the balance of what you have left on the mortgage. If either of you have a pension at w*rk then you may be covered if the worst should happen and not know it.

Just remembered whilst typing we took out the insurance for DH as he left that job and pension scheme so didn`t have any cover.

I`d be interested to know what you decide to do

SD

Sunnyday

OMG :j I`ve just checked the bank balance on the way to work and ITS THERE :j:j all of it from the old endowment and the tiny topup. Both paid in today.

Sweet - No one got in touch re any attachment to the previous mortgage at all.

I keep looking at the mini statement and can`t stop smiling

Need to wait until i get the confirmation letter from A&L at the end of June now about the fixed rate being finished and then i can pay it in.

OOOOH i`m so thrilled.

SD

sweetserendipity

Wow, that's fantastic!! :j It doesn't seem to have taken much time either, I thought they'd be dragging their feet when it came to paying money out!! :rotfl: Bet you can't wait for the end of June & you can see your mortgage balance plummet!!

If/when we cash our endowment policy in we will definitely have some life insurance/assurance arranged beforehand. Hubby is working & has the 'death in service' payment but I'm not so have nothing like that. I suppose it's just for that extra bit of financial security.

We (actually, make that I ) want to use the endowment money to put towards getting an extension, rather than paying some of the mortgage off. As much as I would love to get rid of the mortgage, having more space NOW would be much better for us as a family. Hubby would like to use the money to splash out on a 'holiday of a lifetime' & argues THAT would be good for us as a family & whilst I do agree with him (we haven't had a proper holiday for about 6 or 7 years??) I can't bring myself to spend thousands on something that will only last a couple of weeks!!

Anyway, sooner rather than later I would like to have a separate savings account for mortgage overpayments, even if it's just a few quid every month it will add up over time.

setmefree2

Good news :T

Sunnyday

I know what you mean Sweet re extending the house, i would have loved a kitchen extension. We thought about it (well i did) and decided against it in the end for a few reasons.
Some being all the mess, the fact that there were a couple and three kids here before us and now there are only us two and the animals here so we should be able to make it work.
The main one that put me off was if the council tax was proportionate to living space :eek: should that ever happen there`s no way i want to pay out more every year just because i have a few more square feet to play around with. May not happen but it really put me off We decided on a new kitchen instead

Won`t be coming out of the cash though as we`ve been saving seperately for that and its been a good incentive, it will be finished in a month or so as we`ve done it in a real MSE way

Had another peek at the statement today and grinned the postman brought a letter from A&L and i was hoping that it would be regarding the interest rate change but it was a letter asking if we want to borrow more needless to say that its gone in the bin.

If you do decide to cash your endowment in then what you pay on the premiums should cover some insurance for yourself.

I need to get in touch with the bank now and cancel the DD`s for the endowments. Off i go.

SD

EDIT Re the holiday, i couldn`t do that either, the way i look at it there will be plenty of time for something like that once the mortgage has gone and no worries about not having a safety net either.

Sunnyday

setmefree2 wrote: »

Good news :T

Thanks SMF2 - i`m loving the feeling that i have atm

SD

Sunnyday

Right then, remember how i said that nothing was ever straight forward for us

weeell - i`ve just sat down and had a glass of wine or three and caught up on a few threads here and there and after reading on this board for a while i got all my bumf out and spread it around me and started to read........

Bit of background for you here:-
When we were first looking to move we looked at a hell of a lot of houses and we were actually in the early stages of buying a different one, we got the survey back and horror of horrors found that the house may have moved a bit :eek:

We pulled out of that one and viewed this one blah blah you know the story.

The problem is this, all the letters that i have been receiving relate to a 5 year fixed mortgage at 4.99% with the fixed rate ending on June 30th 2010, now i find that this relates to the KFI for the mortgage on the house that we pulled out of, i have a very vague recollection of a short conversation over 5 years ago with someone about a change of interest rate on the fixed deals offered but can`t recollect more than that.


In the paperwork in front of me i have another KFI with a later date on than the previous one (so i imagine that it supercedes the last) which says 5 year fixed at 4.84% fixed rate period ending 31/08/10.

I`m pretty sure that on the paperwork we signed it said 4.99% but we were so desperate to rush everything through that we could have missed something. We were originally supposed to move in June but our vendor held things up and really panicked us, our old house had been scheduled for demolition and we ended up moving into our new home at 2am :eek:- different story - you can tell how lucky we are

Now what do i do, make the intended overpayment in July after the fixed rate ends in June (supposedly) or wait until September to be on the safe side. All the letters that i have received since we moved in state 30th June as the end date of the fixed rate but knowing my luck after making the overpayment i`ll get another letter saying "sorry its really August and now we`ve pinched part of your overpayment for interest and you have incurred an ERC)

I could scream but i think instead i`m going to have another bottle of wine- a whole one - or some brandy - or both

Answers on a postcard please gotta laugh or i`ll cry

SD

sweetserendipity

Sounds like you need to either phone them or go into a branch & get a definite answer out of them. If you've been getting letters saying 30th June then that should be the date, but I would double-check to be on the safe side.

Still no decision made on our endowment To cash in or not to cash in, that is the question :huh: I can see no extension, no holiday, nothing!!

Have you got any of that wine or brandy left?! :rotfl:

Sunnyday

sweetserendipity wrote: »

Have you got any of that wine or brandy left?! :rotfl:

Nope but i can get some

DH and i have thought about it and we THINK that this has happened -:

We arranged the mortgage for the original house and when that fell through the deals had all changed, we asked for the paperwork to be done again at the new rate but the old paperwork turned up first so we ended up signing those thinking that we would be on track to move in June, then we got delayed by the vendors and because we had signed the old paperwork the set with the new rate never got processed. If we had known about the delay we could just have waited for the paperwork with the new rate on it IYKWIM

So we have decided that rather than try to speak to someone in the call centre or mess about going through the branch (which isn`t that good) we will wait for the letter and then we shall have the letter stating the rate has changed and the KFI with the original info on it so that should be good enough.

We worked out that the difference in the interest rate has cost us just under £300 over 5 years so not too bad but it was one of those things where you need a crystal ball and a lot of luck lol.

With your endowment maybe its a good thing that you haven`t decided? at least it hasn`t been blown on the holiday and your safety net is still there.

Its one of those things where you think about it for a while and then forget about it for a while - i know as its two years ago that i started thinking about cashing mine in and its only just happened

SD