Mortgage Free in Three Yrs

benbenandme

Thankyou Ailuro2, I had a look at co-op but I would get a slightly better rate at the moment with the oneaccount and also theres no fee for joining it. The other reason I can't look at too many others is that my salary is very small (Work p/t as a teaching assistant), but my total income isn't bad but is made up of salary / maintenance / tax credits / child benefit plus extras like matched betting, which means many lenders who only base it on salary wouldn't lend to me I know I can pay it off, in fact have been overpaying by about £500 per month (actual mortgage payment = £340), but their computers don't want to think about that :rolleyes:

ailuro2

if it's the best deal and they will accept you,which isn't as easy now as it was before, then go for it - it's a popular 'mortgage' and I can't see many problems with your plan.

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

benbenandme wrote: »

I asked a question on the mortgage board but have had no replies so thought I'd come and ask you guys your advice instead Do any of you have a oneaccount and what do you think of it? My fixed rate runs out in June and I am thinking of getting one, as another fixed rate would seriously limit my overpayment ability (10% a year with current lender). Hope you don't mind me asking here, I am part of the challenge

Hi there, we have a virginone account and have done well with it (see sig) If you are good with money and can get your head round the concept then I don't see a problem. They deduct the interest monthly and leave you to calculate how much you want to leave in the account to reduce the debt. If we need any extra cash I know i can draw on the facility but I much prefer to pay it off!

I know some people don't like this account but we have done ok with it.

Good luck whatever you decide.

silvercar

benbenandme wrote: »

I asked a question on the mortgage board but have had no replies so thought I'd come and ask you guys your advice instead Do any of you have a oneaccount and what do you think of it? My fixed rate runs out in June and I am thinking of getting one, as another fixed rate would seriously limit my overpayment ability (10% a year with current lender). Hope you don't mind me asking here, I am part of the challenge

The one account is a well marketted brand, there are many offset mortgage that do the same thing at a lower interest rate without the branding.

Try looking for offsets from Yorkshire, Coventry and Intelligent FInance (IF); you will probably get the same benefits but at a lower interest rate.

benbenandme

I did go on money supermarket but most of the others either wouldn't lend me enough due to my salary being really low (my salary is only about 40% of my income, the rest is maintenance / tax credits / child benefit etc), or they had high arrangement fees

weezie_2

ailuro2 - watch out - the co-op DO have a 10% op limit. It states it in the Early Repayment Charges section of the page you linked to. We have a similar deal with them. A couple of weeks ago they assured me that they'd phone & warn us before a DD collection was made that would take us above the 10% limit. I'm going to do my best not to test this out & amend our standard op back down before we break the limit later in the year.

I was also wondering about switching to the FD deal when our current mortgage deal expires (if it's still around). Keep us posted on how it goes if you switch benbenandme.

ailuro2

It must be a different mortgage we have, ours was a standard lifetime of mortgage tracker at plus 0.49%, of course everything has changed in the year or two since we switched, so I would phone and ask if I were taking out a new mortgage, which of course is what I did when we changed, made sure there was no 10% tie-in.

When we did have a 10% tie-in with Co-op it was the outstanding balance at the anniversary date, not the current balance, so phone up and ask them, we did it in the previous mortgage and they were very helpful at working the balance out for us.

Looking at my sig you will see we can pay off as much as we like in a year, and withdraw the overpayment fund if we want to also.:D

TallGirl

I agree that offset accounts can be a good idea. My DH is hopeless at setting up savings accounts and as a 40% tax payer we have been a lot better off paying off mortgage debt than having an ISA. Ours is the Barclay's/Woolwich and we have not had any of the problems with seeing it online etc etc. We can pay off as much as we like and can borrow the offset back which is handy for larger purchases e.g our golf club membership will be £20 a month cheaper if we pay it in a lump sum rather can DD. We pay .75% above BOE baserate so not a lot at the moment. At one stage it was a lot more than people with a fixed rate but I am glad I stuck with it as it seems so expensive now to remortage and we have such a small balance left.

I think only you can make the ultimate choice but fees and flexibility would rate high on my list.

Trying_to_be_good

:mad: :mad: :mad: Just had to put my 'grumpy' head on to phone Woolwich as I checked my credit report and saw they had recorded me as being 3 months plus in arrears in Apr 08. Now, that was the month when, in addition to my 'normal' overpayments, I overpaid lump sums totalling over £26,500 due to cashing in an endowment and having another investment product refunded.

They sent me an arrears letter at the time, I phoned them livid, they apologised profusely as it was all a horrible computer mistake.

Then, it seems, they've told the credit agencies I was in arrears. They'll get back to me in 48 hours...:rolleyes:

If it wasn't a +0.18% tracker I'd've moved to another lender months ago, but I'll not be cutting off my nose to spite my face.

These things are sent to try us.

Dithering_Dad

Trying_to_be_good wrote: »

:mad: :mad: :mad: Just had to put my 'grumpy' head on to phone Woolwich as I checked my credit report and saw they had recorded me as being 3 months plus in arrears in Apr 08. Now, that was the month when, in addition to my 'normal' overpayments, I overpaid lump sums totalling over £26,500 due to cashing in an endowment and having another investment product refunded.

They sent me an arrears letter at the time, I phoned them livid, they apologised profusely as it was all a horrible computer mistake.

Then, it seems, they've told the credit agencies I was in arrears. They'll get back to me in 48 hours...:rolleyes:

If it wasn't a +0.18% tracker I'd've moved to another lender months ago, but I'll not be cutting off my nose to spite my face.

These things are sent to try us.

Just goes to show that it's worth checking your credit record every so often. Did you do it as part of a freebie deal, or have you subscribed to Experian (or one of the other agencies)?