Virgin Mortgage Wont bring term down on overpayment

tudorfan39

I came into some money so thought id do the sensible thing and pay off some of the mortgage, I specifically asked at the time that I didn't want my payments to go down but I wanted my term to reduce (its a whopping 35 years) and so today I get a letter to say my monthly payments have gone down! when I asked the call centre guy he said it wasn't possible with Virgin to reduce the term, only to reduce the payments - is this true or does he not know what hes talking about?  the first last I spoke to about this didn't think it was a problem and 'flagged' my OP to reduce the term - I don't know who to believe!?  any help much appreciated! 

AnotherJoe

No need to worry even if adviser was correct. 
First thing, if you paid a chunk off the mortgage and as long as you ensure that new payments going forward are at the original level (because they will be reduced to keep the original term)  so make a standing order to make up the difference each month, then the term will be reduced in practice. 

Second thing, reducing the mortgage length is a a contractual thing and you would be bound by it. If at some later time you wanted to reduce payments you couldn't, this way you Have flexibility
Third thing, ( ! ) as and when you renew your mortgage when the fixed period ends, you can adjust the length then.

laxlau

tudorfan39 said:

...the call centre guy he said it wasn't possible with Virgin to reduce the term, only to reduce the payments - is this true or does he not know what hes talking about?

Given that their website has an overpayment calculator that specifically shows you how much you can reduce your term by I reckon the call centre guy was wrong.  Annoyingly I can’t post a link in my first post so can’t just send you there bit you can find it with google easily enough.