Anyone got a mortgage with Halifax?

Rob-123

I’m in the process of remortgaging, I’m currently with the Co-op who have always been great with customer service.

However the Halifax are offering 1.46% over 5 years which beats the Co-op’s best existing customer deal of 1.58% over 2 years.

Ive read a few horror stories about Halifax, can’t get through on the phone, forms being sent in and lost, just wondered if it’s a case of your only hear the bad stories’ or if anyone here has any experience of Halifax mortgages?

Thanks in advance!

Edi81

You’re always going to hear more of the things that go wrong that customers that don’t have problems. 

Halifax is the largest mortgage company in the UK so can’t be all bad. 

[Deleted User]

From a brokers perspective Halifax are currently one of the easiest lenders to deal with. I just took a remortgage from application to funds release in 3 weeks with them.   Other high street lenders havent even looked at my case for the first time after 3 weeks. 

Not great for existing customer retention rates though

dunstonh

Ive read a few horror stories about Halifax, can’t get through on the phone, forms being sent in and lost, just wondered if it’s a case of your only hear the bad stories’ or if anyone here has any experience of Halifax mortgages?

If you are using a broker then none of that is an issue.

amnblog

Bit baffled as to why customer service is a primary driver when paying interest on a loan over 25 year odd years.

Rob-123

Thanks for the replies. 

Amnblog - Main reason is I want to be able to phone and get through easily and make overpayments, but also have the knowledge that in these uncertain times I can rely on Halifax to help with underpayments if they are ever needed.

ordnancesurvey84

Hi Rob,
My experience with our Halifax mortgage has been overwhelmingly positive. It's very easy to make overpayments from any bank account simply by using the sort code and account number provided on their website and your mortgage number as the reference. If you use internet banking, you can also easily see your remaining overpayment allowance for the year.
It's also been possible in my experience, to simply cancel the monthly direct debit and replace this with a standing order for the monthly payment amount (on the same day of the month), which means that you can then adjust your monthly payment amount without having to contact them and ask them to amend it. 
I haven't yet made any underpayments, and I'd recommend calling them to discuss this before doing this the first time, but my understanding is that until such time that there is a recalculation of your monthly payment amount, you can underpay to the value of any previous overpayments, so you could overpay by £1,000 one month, and underpay by £1,000 the next month.

Ohfeelya

Rob-123 said:

Thanks for the replies. 

Amnblog - Main reason is I want to be able to phone and get through easily and make overpayments, but also have the knowledge that in these uncertain times I can rely on Halifax to help with underpayments if they are ever needed.

Well I can answer that one as I've made overpayments by phone on my Halifax mortgage. It's an automated system so was super easy. 
I also wanted to check the overpayment would shorten the term not lower the payments. I was able to reach them easily via the chat in the app and got my answer quickly. 
Hope that helps! 

clueless_but_curious

ordnancesurvey84 said:

Hi Rob,
My experience with our Halifax mortgage has been overwhelmingly positive. It's very easy to make overpayments from any bank account simply by using the sort code and account number provided on their website and your mortgage number as the reference. If you use internet banking, you can also easily see your remaining overpayment allowance for the year.
It's also been possible in my experience, to simply cancel the monthly direct debit and replace this with a standing order for the monthly payment amount (on the same day of the month), which means that you can then adjust your monthly payment amount without having to contact them and ask them to amend it. 
I haven't yet made any underpayments, and I'd recommend calling them to discuss this before doing this the first time, but my understanding is that until such time that there is a recalculation of your monthly payment amount, you can underpay to the value of any previous overpayments, so you could overpay by £1,000 one month, and underpay by £1,000 the next month.

Surely that is not the case - that would make it one step closer to being an offset...?

Thrugelmir

amnblog said:

Bit baffled as to why customer service is a primary driver when paying interest on a loan over 25 year odd years.

How many people remain with the same lender these days for the entire mortgage term?  Though the vast majority of people are unlikely to have any need to have communication with customer services. 

ordnancesurvey84

clueless_but_curious said:

Surely that is not the case - that would make it one step closer to being an offset...?

I’m happy to be corrected, but I do believe that to be the case. I have in fact called them up just to clarify the process of underpaying. I explained that I’d cancelled my direct debit, so I didn’t need them to adjust it for me, and they said I could go ahead and underpay. I didn’t get the sense that there was a formal process of granting me permission to do so. I think they simply recommend calling them beforehand for them to a) adjust your direct debit (if that’s how you pay) and b) confirm the value of overpayments you have built up, but if you’re sure of your figures, then I suspect you could just go ahead and underpay without calling them first.

Here’s what the Halifax website says about underpayments: 

Underpayments

What are they?

An underpayment is where you pay less than you owe for your monthly payment. You must not underpay on your mortgage unless you have our permission and you have previously made overpayments of the same or greater amount.

Whenever we recalculate your monthly mortgage payment, we use any overpayments you have made to reduce what you owe. Once we have done this, you will need to build up new overpayments before you can underpay again.

If I want to underpay, do I have to make arrangements with you?

You should contact us to arrange to underpay so that we can tell you the amount of overpayments available for you to use. We can then change your direct debit for the time you want to underpay.