Can a mortgage withdraw bank base rate guarantee just like that ?

Thrugelmir

shortchanged wrote: »

Well I suppose that's why we'll never see tracker rates being offered any less than 1.99% above BoE rate (and that's for very good LTV's) again.

Before the mortgage credit boom. There was a cartel across the major lenders as SVR was almost uniformly 2% above BOE base.

At the moment new borrowers are in effect subsidising those current borrowers on low tracker rates. Which are losing money for the lenders.

jk38

Hi,

Just an update for the interest of those who've posted on this thread

Called them up and basically they explained that now, by law, they can't do anything that could jepordize the future of the Building Society and take it into an 'area of risk' of losing any of its investors money, so they are duty bound to take action - I nearly offered to donate a few quid to help them out

She admitted that - they've had a team going through every mortgage offer looking for any 'get outs' and in my particular case I requested a small amendment in 2003 and this caused an 'amendment' from their side to the contract, in that the gurantee (by that they mean the terms of the agreement of the contract) were then only valid for a minimum of 5 years

This amendment of theirs came by way of a change of conditions details sheet that was part of a missive apparently sent to my broker as part of the amendment I'd asked for (broker now deceased and in fairness to him, we had planned to move my mortgage before the five years anyway and he did get me a mortgage when no one else would touch me in my first couple of years of starting my company) but I've no way of verifying the sheet was present at the brokers at the time, and they know it

They have kindly sent me a copy of the change of conditions sheet and explained that the details of it should have been explained to me by the broker when I signed for my requested amendment, I certainly don't remember seeing it at the time - but as some have suggested - I couldn't swear in court that it wasn't attached and that I simply missed it - I don't think that's the case but I can't prove it

So that's that - never missed a payment, toughed it out when the rates were right up there, as soon as they're not making much (they're not losing money on this mortgage) - bump - all bet's are off - goalposts moved

So looks like I have to take this on the chin - moral is - even when dealing through a broker, have the lender send you a copy of everything to carefully study prior to signing, read all the small print, if another document is referenced in the small print, make sure you have advance copies of that and study that too and of course keep a copy of everything - and when the broker says it's all ok, everything is the same except the amendment you've asked for - check it yourself carefully

If it's any consolation I did make a point of mentioning while I was on the phone to them, that no one from the FSA or the Government was intervening when they were raking it in and crippling us punters when the interest rates were skyhigh - she laughed - I wasn't joking

I do have 12 months to pay it off or move it - some aren't that lucky and I feel for them