Manchester Building Society

RenovationMan

People can always vote with their feet and move to a better deal. Too many are fence sitting and staying on SVR, if they feel they will have problems paying their mortgages if rates rise then they should go with a long-term fix.

wotsthat

SecondLegDownIsTheBigOne wrote: »

And you don't think that Halifax considered this possibility before making the decision?

No I don't - they thought they could get away with it with no issues.

MBS are only going to get away with this because there's a specific opt-out clause after five years.

I can't see any of the bigger lenders trying to invoke a much more general contractual clause to break the BoE link. I've been on the Nationwide BMR (Lifetime BoE + 2%) and so have been watching this carefully. The tactics they've been using is to to try and scare people off the BMR by hinting at the safety of a fix and impending rate rises.

As and when lending increases it'll become less of an issue as the BoE linked mortgages become a smaller part of the mortgage book and they eventually get repaid anyway.

chucknorris

wotsthat wrote: »

No I don't - they thought they could get away with it with no issues.

MBS are only going to get away with this because there's a specific opt-out clause after five years.

I can't see any of the bigger lenders trying to invoke a much more general contractual clause to break the BoE link. I've been on the Nationwide BMR (Lifetime BoE + 2%) and so have been watching this carefully. The tactics they've been using is to to try and scare people off the BMR by hinting at the safety of a fix and impending rate rises.

As and when lending increases it'll become less of an issue as the BoE linked mortgages become a smaller part of the mortgage book and they eventually get repaid anyway.

I tend to agree, I may be wrong but I seem to recall an old post where someone stated that only approx 10% of mortgages were lifetime trackers linked to the BOE base rate (as apposed to a SVR). If it is only 10% then its probably not too much of a problem for them, and as you say this percentage will decrease over time.

Does anyone know what the percentage of mortgages that are BOE lifetime trackers is?

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

Wasn't exactly easy for them though was it?

How much compensation did borrowers end up getting?

The compensation allowed them to change the terms going forward. it wasn't compensation anyway, and that was very important for Halifax. It was a goodwill payment, and they very much wanted it to be seen and understood as such.