A MF day begins at midnight

midnight_child

Far too long since my last post.

Been very busy at work recently, so not had much time to catch up on everyone's diary.

But all the long hours means I have had little opportunity to spend any money.

Not long till the next monthly update.
MC

Dobbibill

Did you do the downgrade of W10 or have you learnt to embrace it?

midnight_child

Hi Dobbi,

I was having real issues with microsoft edge crashing and just generally being carp. However, I installed firefox and all my problems magically disappeared, while all my smilies have returned :T.:):j:beer:;):rotfl:

The rest of the "upgrade" can be tolerated over the ordeal of reinstating everything. I dont even recall the password I used when I signed up my code on their website.

MC

midnight_child

Sorry for the long period of absence. Work is very busy this time of year and I have been putting in long hours and not really had much time spare.

Back to update some very unexpectedly good news that I felt I had to share right away. Its a bit wordy so maybe grab cocoa............

It was a calm evening in the Midnight house. MC had just logged on to H$BC website to check if he had been paid yet (due at midnight - obviously :rotfl:), and there is a new button on the online banking page next to his mortgage labelled "overpayment details". Curious he thought, not seen that one before. So MC clicked on it to see what it was and a new screen came up, saying that he could overpay 10% of the balance each year without a penalty and that so far in the year (which curiously began on 27th Sept but ends in mid December), there had been £0 of £8919 overpaid.

That's odd, MC said to himself. The original paperwork says I am only allowed to OP 20% of my monthly payment, which is really frustrating and means in reality I can OP hardly anything before the charge me. This was not an opportunity to miss, in case they decided to take the button away again, and so he immediately transferred £100 from his current account to the mortgage account to see what would happen. Now, this is something that had tried several times before, but each time the computer had said it was not allowed. What a silly MC trying such a thing.
So this £100 is an amount under their old rules would have charged MC a couple of quid as an ERC but he figured it was worth the risk just for curiosity's sake.

It flashed up a message saying that he was within his limit and there would be no penalty charge, and options to "cancel" or "confirm". I bet you can all guess which one he selected .

Think he might get to like this new button, and it will bring much enjoyment. However, as it is a shiny new button and he will need to take great care not to break it through over use .

Night night
MC

Dobbibill

Sounds like you've been on a treasure hunt - good find :T

Boys and their toys :rotfl:

Enjoy your new toys, I'm sure it will provide hours of fun and lots of smiles

gallygirl

Genius, if only all mortgages had such a button :rotfl:.

midnight_child

Evening folks,

Well the extra payment has gone through absolutely fine and I have now used up £100 of my OP allowance. I wont get anywhere near the limit, but at least I wont have to wait till 2017 to pay off more than about £40 without a fee.

Not quite sure why I have not had a letter about this change, but maybe they don't have to notify as it is more generous terms and I suspect they don't want everyone getting the idea to save themselves some money.

If only there was someone we could inform about this change. :money:

MC

ourcornercottage

I'm informed! Logged on and saw the same thing. Will give them a call today to confirm as my t and c's definately say 20% of the monthly payment on my fixed part of the mortgage. Very exciting though as the fixed part is on a higher rate so would rather be OPing that and may fix the other part now too later this year. Thanks for the heads up

ourcornercottage

I called HSBC today and they have indeed changed the t and c on some mortgage products so that 10% OPs can now be paid per year. Letters are coming out in the next few weeks they said.

Ive changed my standard OP so that the bulk comes out of the fixed part which is on a higher rate. Thanks for pointing this out, I may well be MF a few days earlier because of you!

midnight_child

ourcornercottage wrote: »

I called HSBC today and they have indeed changed the t and c on some mortgage products so that 10% OPs can now be paid per year. Letters are coming out in the next few weeks they said.

That is very interesting. It certainly allows much more flexibility for deciding if to OP or create savings. I suspect I will be doing a mixture of saving and OPing, as well now I have the facility it would be rude not to make the most of it

ourcornercottage wrote: »

Ive changed my standard OP so that the bulk comes out of the fixed part which is on a higher rate. Thanks for pointing this out, I may well be MF a few days earlier because of you!

That's most kind, but I am not sure I can claim much credit. You should thank your bank for being so generous .
Really didn't think those words could arrange in that way till now:rotfl:

MC