Re-mortgage experiences Jul 2014

seymourd68

In the spirit of the various forum codes of practise in this area I am not a financial adviser,.. this is not advice. It is just my experiences of re-mortgaging. I am writing them now, because the situation has become much more challenging since the last time I did this before regulatory changes and before the financial crisis of 2008. I note that there are probably much more credible and informative areas of the forum advice and refer the reader to those in any decision making activity.

In this note I convey experiences on :

• 5 year Fixed Mortgage decision (at this time)
• London and Country Mortgage broker
• Halifax Building society
• Accord Mortgages

We recently decided to fix our mortgage for 5 years.
This was based on our view of the interest rate situation over the coming years and our desire to obtain predictability as part of our overall plan to clear our mortgage. (within around ten years)

I initially tried to speak to my existing mortgage lender (Halifax) who had always provided a good level of service and reasonable rates.

We were not one of the lucky ones who managed to get a very low tracking mortgage during the years of low bank of england rates and we had paid between 3-4% throughout the period on all mortgages operated.

Dealing with the halifax (or encumbent mortgage provider) was very difficult and personally challenging for me simply because it was no longer a simple "conversation" about the best available rate for us, as it had previously been. We had always enjoyed these conversations over the previous 15 years with mortgage lenders pre 2014.
The Halifax, to my understanding, were actually not able to offer a "re-mortgage" product at all and could only process us as a "new application" which I found very frustrating after 30 years as a Halifax customer.

Although the Halifax did not do anything particularly wrong I decided it was easier to use a Broker than to go through a long drawn out review process with them as a single option for fixing my mortgage (re-mortgage in my eyes, Application for new product in their eyes following regulatory changes)

I used London & Country : I had a personal recommendation as well as the advice on this site. Although I, of course, had to provide a lengthy interview and a lot of follow-up financial information this made more sense to me in the context of my existing provider conversations, since I was getting exposure to a much broader set of options including the Halifax.

They also gave me access to "Intermediary only" mortgages that were a little bit better than the ones I was surveying myself on the open market.
The service worked better for me once I had established a very solid understanding of exactly what we wanted/needed and exactly what our current mortgage position was.

We had made great attempts at simplification of our current mortgage and financial position deliberately in light of our expectations over tighter borrowing conditions.
1. Cleared all outstanding debts.
2. Waited until that debt clearance had been acknowledge on "noddle" monthly credit report for 2 months (Free credit rating service)
3. Ensured that my LTV was accurate and realistic. (in our case <75%)
4. A good understanding of what a good rate for 5 years would be for us. e.g. I felt we were never going to achieve the very low rates that some folks were paying of <1% on established base rate trackers so we set very realistic expectations about rates for us.

I selected the Accord Mortgage in my specific circumstances which lowered the rate I was paying at the Halifax by around 0.7% and fixed it for my required 5 years at 3.29%.

The only notes I would add were that :
London and Country really did serve me much better once I had re-stated my needs in very clear and unambiguous terms. e.g. (redemption penalty, arrangement fee, term, repayment, overpayment, payment holiday, daily interest calculations, etc)

I spent quite a lot of time making sure that all the information they requested on behalf of accord application was accurate and complete. (several hours)

Accord are a subsidiary of Yorkshire Building Society. (I felt comfortable with this relationship to a well established brand)

Accord do not have an online "borrower" account facility, but I am working around that quite successfully and their telephone service is extremely good so far.

I am presenting these experiences now simply because the situation for me in re-mortgaging has forever changed and I wanted to convey how we personally navigated this at a time where I feel it is becoming much more difficult.

Happy to re-state or clarify anything that is not clear as required.
Thanks
David.

jonnyb1978

Good to hear. My broker had advised on going with Accord, however I just seem to hear so many negative comments I'm not sure whether to use them or not. We should have a straight forward case. Only complication I can think of is most of my wife's ID is in her maiden name but we do have the marriage certificate to prove otherwise.

dimbo61

So have you now got the 5 year fix with Accord at 3.29% through L&C ?
There SVR is 5.99% !

seymourd68

@JohnnyB1978 : Well I will try and remember to report any negative difficulties here. So far so good. I am not a fussy customer if the rates are ok !
With the Halifax. they kindly raised the rate by 0.5% during the low rate period, to cover their expenses over PPI (as I understand it) and of course I never had any PPI so felt a bit aggrieved about that.

My wife had same thing.
We married.. she started to change her name, then stopped so she has a mixture of names spread across various accounts. This was queried by Accord, but our explanation was satisfactory.
Good Luck.

seymourd68

@dimbo61 I will review the situation again in 5 years or just before and work out what to do in that climate at that time... Hopefully with a much smaller borrowing amount!

What do you think the base rates will be in 5 years ?
Do you think the Accord SVR will be at 5.99% then ?