Hip Hip Hooray

abandonded

A few weeks ago I spoke to a friend who had surrendered his 4 endowments, paid off his mortgage with the proceeds and was left with £4500 to spare. Having thought this over for a week or so, I decided to check up on the surrender value of my own 3 endowments and was pleasantly surprised when I found that the surrender value was £11000 more that the balance of my mortgage. I decided to go ahead with the surrender and am now awaiting the cheques so that I too, can clear off the mortgage account bar £1. The pound is being left in order to avoid paying a £1500 ERC.
As a direct result, we will now have £11000 extra in savings and no longer will pay £600+ per month for the mortgage and endowments:beer:. We have taken out extra life insurance because our existing insurance was tied in with the mortgage.

I am not saying that this is a suitable solution for everyone in the same position, but it certainly suits us.:)

maninthestreet

Sounds great. Enjoy the money!

kingstreet

A certain amount of caution should go into approaching something like this. If maturity is close, you may lose a valuable terminal bonus only payable at maturity.

Look carefully at your plan to ensure you won't lose out.

abandonded

I agree, but in my case maturity is nowhere near and we have instant relief from mortgage and endowment payments not to mention the amount of interest that will saved over the remaining 5 years. We will be debt free in (ie apart from the £1 balance) in just 2 weeks time.:) It has only been made possible because we have made many, many, overpayments during the past 5 years or so. The final clincher was the shortfalls on all 3 endowments.

kingstreet

My post was aimed at others searching and finding this thread later, rather than you. That's why I didn't quote you or refer to your situation directly.

I don't doubt you've made the right decision for the right reasons.