Why can't we see our mortgage transactions?

kronkodile

Hello everyone, my husband and I are also trying to pay of our mortage quickly - we are fairly new to this having only purchased our first house last year, so apologies if I'm a little bit "green"!

We've recently started to make overpayments on our mortgage. We arranged the standing order for the extra payment, and also registered with our lender for internet access to our account. However it is "neither use nor ornament", as all the system enables us to see is the total outstanding balance of the mortgage. As we are making overpayments, we want to see that they were being received and what interest is now being charged.

I called them to ask and was told that they don't list transactions, we have to wait for our annual statement, and that a £15 charge was made for any extra ones.

Surely this can't be right? There is no transparency regarding the amount of interest being charged with these revised payments, and as the balance is still quite high it's difficult to calculate exactly what's going on just from seeing that figure alone. I feel the need to telephone each month to check that they've got our extra payment, which surely defeats the object of the internet facilities?!

Can we demand to see our transactions without extra cost? It seems bizarre to me that we can't see exactly what's going on with the biggest amount of money we're ever likely to borrow. Is this the case with all lenders?

Martinslovechild

My mortgage lender didn't provide any internet access at all but I still managed to keep on top of where I was by using a spreadsheet that I'd created myself (based on the standard Loan Amortization template in Microsoft Excel).

I suggest you set yourself up a spreadsheet in Excel; you'll then be able to calculate your balance (within a pound or two) enabling you to stay on-track.

Dithering_Dad

If you want regular updates because you're doing monthly overpayments (for example), don't be afraid to ring your bank on a regular basis (I ring mine the day after my mortgage is paid to see where I am upto).

Rafter

Al Mac is right, make sure from your original mortgage document that interest is calculated daily or monthly otherwise your payments could just be sitting there to december and not reducing your interest bill at all.

Some lenders, particularly those who do offset accounts, can give you the information you are after, but with most you have to wait for an annual statement.

As long as you have a clear record of when you sent extra payment you should be able to verify your annual statement and any errors without having to go through the whole exercise each month.

R.

kronkodile

Thank you very much for your replies - I think the mortgage is calculated daily, but will check. The spreadsheet is a good idea, I will get my husband to do it as he is a whizz with things like that.

I still find it really baffling that they can't provide more info on transactions online - banks do it with current accounts all the time, why not mortgages?

david78

I suspect that there are not enough customers wanting day-to-day access and monitoring to make it worth there while updating their software systems.

Most people just see their mortgage as a debt to pay of every month, and as long as they can meet their monthly payment comfortably they are happy.

The spreadsheet idea is the best way to go. Use it to do your own monitoring each month, then consolidate/check it against your annual statement. There are some calculators on this board if you need help with calculating interest. (I would recommend mine, but then I'm biased; they are all good) Very simply though, if you make an extra payment of X each month by standing order, your interest "saved" for the month is (1/12)*X*(rate/100) where rate is the interest rate.

Good luck with it.

Kaz2904

I keep track of my overpayments with my saved snowball on www.whatsthecost.co.uk but I still phone up every month. I phone the day after the interest is taken and then I can work out exactly how much interest I have been charged.

David78, your formula is good- I just worked out that with my overpayment of £696.22 this month I have saved £30.69 interest this month!

david78

Kaz2904 wrote: »

David78, your formula is good- I just worked out that with my overpayment of £696.22 this month I have saved £30.69 interest this month!

No way! Its more like £2.56 (you have forgot to divide by 12) .

Your interest rate is 4.41%. It would have to be 53% to get your figure, in which case forget overpaying and re-mortgage fast!

Of course you get the £2.56 saving every month from now on, so your £30.69 is the amount saved each year. Then again, you save £306 over ten years, and if you make monthly overpayments, each cycle of 10 years starts every month!! Don't you just love overpaying maths.

GettingThingsDone

Hi k - who is your mortgage with, if you don't mind me asking. I may be able to give you an update as to when they'll provide online statements via my contacts

pm if you like

gtd