First Direct mortgage rates cut and cheaper fees

AdamBrunt

Another text from FD this afternoon saying the valuation report had been received and approved.

Nanao_2

uzubairu wrote: »

Re-mortgage was completed today.
We got text messages from Enact and First Direct.

The first mortgage payment is due on 3rd October 2010.

Congrats on completing your mortgage!! :T

AdamBrunt wrote: »

Another text from FD this afternoon saying the valuation report had been received and approved.

Not long to go now

Not much has been happening my end - I've updated my timeline here

bluesofa_2

I'm considering getting a capital repayment mortgage with First Direct.

The calculator on the First Direct website gives an estimate of my monthly payments that is exactly the same as the estimate on my mortgage offer.

However, this doesn't appear to match other mortgage calculators. For example, from the FSA moneymadeclear site.

Can anyone explain why ?

The difference is small, but I'm curious to know why it's there at all. First Direct could only redirect me back to the calculator.

To use the First Direct Calculator for a repayment mortgage, you have to initially set an interest rate for an offset mortgage, then leave all the offset fields blank, and when you get to the results you can change the interest rate to that for a repayment mortgage. (I was told this by First Direct).

First Direct Mortgage calculator says a mortgage of 300,000 over 16 years at 2.29% would require repayments of £1869.92

Other calculators give an estimate of £1868
Or to be more precise £1867.67
which would agree with my calculation using excel's function
=PMT(2.29%/12, 192, 300000,0,0)

I assume one of the below statements from the Terms and Conditions and mortgage offer may explain the discrepancy, but I don't know which.

"We will calculate interest on the outstanding debit balance of your loan facility daily"

"Interest will be charged monthly in arrears and we will charge you one final repayment consisting of captial [their spelling mistake?] and interest on the Repayment Date."

"The mortgage is assumed to start on the 1Nov2010"

As I say the difference is small (even after I've inflated the figures from my actual mortgage offer), but I am keen to know why it is there. Any help appreciated.

kabads

I noticed this too, but haven't had time to look into it. Would be interested to hear what others think.

chelly78

I'm in the process of changing my joint mortgage (brother now moving in with girlfriend) with FD to being in my name only. Initially I was going to keep the mortgage I had (Offset tracker at 2.49% + BR capped at 4.99% until 1/8/12) but now debating changing to a non-capped one at 1.99%+BR and hoping interest rates don't increase to more than 3% by then??!

Quick question - in the paper work FD have sent it says mortgage amount 113500 (original amount borrowed), however we have overpayed a bit in the year that we had the mortgage and current balance is £106400 - I have absolutely no plans to increase this back to the original amount, can I ask FD to change the mortgage amount to the outstanding balance and would it make any difference to the interest payments etc??

originalmiscellany

Not answering your questions, but I got a text from them tonight, saying "welcome to text message banking. Your banking messages will be activated within the next 10 days", which I assume means I'm progressing nicely

And this morning 01 09 2010, I got through my "Welcome to First Direct Banking" pack... More to follow it appears!

uzubairu

chelly78 wrote: »

I'm in the process of changing my joint mortgage (brother now moving in with girlfriend) with FD to being in my name only. Initially I was going to keep the mortgage I had (Offset tracker at 2.49% + BR capped at 4.99% until 1/8/12) but now debating changing to a non-capped one at 1.99%+BR and hoping interest rates don't increase to more than 3% by then??!

Quick question - in the paper work FD have sent it says mortgage amount 113500 (original amount borrowed), however we have overpayed a bit in the year that we had the mortgage and current balance is £106400 - I have absolutely no plans to increase this back to the original amount, can I ask FD to change the mortgage amount to the outstanding balance and would it make any difference to the interest payments etc??

We initially asked for £75,000 when we made our application last month. We guessed that it might be around that figure, but wanted to make sure we were covered.
We were told that they would pay the redemption figure quoted by our previous lender.

When it was finally completed First Direct just loaned us the amount that was needed to redeem the mortgage with Nationwide.
Our mortgage figure with First Direct started at £73,064.

AdamBrunt

same experience as uzubairu.

We gave FD an 'estimated' loan amount on tha basis that (only having annual statements from the current lender) we had no way of knowing what the exact O/S balance would be on completion date (though as we are on an SVR, we knew there wouldn't be any ERCs).

FD were fine with that and assured us that they would just set the amount at the exact figure they 'paid' to our current lender.

AdamBrunt

Just got a text from enact saying the anticipated completion date is the 7th September

Question is ... how do find I out the exact payment schedules for the remortgage in terms of how much I might have to pay my current lender (and when) and how much (and when) the first payment will be for FD ?

originalmiscellany

Adam, I'm unsure - I contacted my current mortgage provider - Halifax and asked them how much the mortgage would be as of the last day of my fixed rate with them - they gave me an amount, which I let First Direct know.
I hope they can speak to Halifax to ensure that everything goes smoothly... 1 Dec 2010 is the first date of the FD mortgage and I was told that it should be a seamless transition - I don't know if it really will be that easy.