What is a Nat West Foundations mortgage

edda

Has anyone heard of a mortgage product sold by Nat West called Foundations?

We've had one from 2001 and can't make any sense of it now. We asked for a simple repayment or capital & interest one - but it now looks like we were sold one that is neither.

Tried to contact the bank as we're not sure that the mortgage will now be paid off at the end of the term. No one at the bank seems to be able to explain the current status as the person who sold it to us is no longer there.

All advice will be gratefully received. Thank you.

homer_j_3

Just did a quick google and this is what I found

http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=20918

Does this look/sound familiar?

UK007BullDog

Is your mortgage amount reducing? Have you looked at your yearly mortgage statements to see if you are repaying or just paying interest?

Very interesting mortgage package. Its not a regulated mortgage.

nrsql

It was one of the early flexible mortgages which was more like an offset.
I think they were running the virgin one account and this was replaced by the equivalent of that.

I don't think it was advertised but offered to certain (high income?) customers. I thought about taking one out but did some calcuations and worked out how much I would have to keep in the account to break even on a cheaper mortgage (same problem with most flexible/offset mortgages).

If you really asked for a simple repayment mortgage it sounds like possible misselling.
I suspect this would be interest only. I think the idea was that it was for people who were moving a lot of money around. If you had a lot of cash you could dump it in the account and when you wanted to invest you could take it out again. It was up to you to make sure you could pay off the amount when it came to term.

edda

Thanks to you all for your quick responses.

We had seen the press release on the internet and have printed it off to try and add to our understanding of the product. We certainly didn't (and don't) move lots of cash about and weren't aware it was for high income customers.

Don't like the sound of it being an unregulated mortage - what does this mean?

JoeK_3

It's a mortgage that was introduced and taken out prior to the FSA taking over the regulating of mortgages, hence, an unregulated mortgage.

The mortgage appears to be an interest only mortgage which means that you will never pay your mortgage off.

Joek

edda

UK007BullDog wrote: »

Is your mortgage amount reducing? Have you looked at your yearly mortgage statements to see if you are repaying or just paying interest?

Very interesting mortgage package. Its not a regulated mortgage.

Checked back on the statements - they don't say whether or not we are repaying capital or interest. But the last few months have included a phrase that has caused us to question the basis of the mortgage. Will have to dig them out to check the exact wording.