Accepted Halifax fixed rate mortgage months in advance, rates now dropping

CrGlo

Hi everyone, I’m new here and just wanted to compare our mortgage offer with others please. We accepted a new two year fixed rate from Halifax last week ahead of the interest rate rise, expecting that mortgage rates could continue to rise further. Our current Halifax mortgage ends in December so we have some time but we were worried that rates could keep rising. After seeing that mortgage rates then dropped a bit in the news, I called Halifax and they said to call again next week and we could be able to get a lower rate, although there are currently ‘no changes’ and it could be for new customers only.

We paid a broker £150 only to hear this was the best deal available at the time last week. On the same day, Rishi Sunak said on LBC radio an average £800 mortgage would only rise to £1000 - so we were confused to hear this given that ours has gone from £792 to £1258 that same day (LTV is under 80%). Are these lower available rates on the news, and mentioned by Rishi, only available to new customers?? They didn’t seem to be available to us when we tried to remortgage with the broker - we’re a family in our 30s, have good credit ratings, always pay bills etc. What’s in the news doesn’t seem to match what we’re being offered at all. My only plan now is to keep calling Halifax periodically until December to see if there are lower rates that we can lock into. Is there anything else we can try please? Our mortgage rate has gone up over 50%.

kingstreet

Nope. No quick route to do this. We spent five months checking one of our clients' rate switches to ensure they always had the best rate reserved. We did have the benefit of the intermediary enquiry service to be able to check though.

RelievedSheff

No need to keep calling them. You can use your online account.

CrGlo

RelievedSheff said:

No need to keep calling them. You can use your online account.

After accepting the fixed rate we were offered last week it doesn’t let us see any deals online, it says:
 
“You can't switch to a new deal online as you've recently asked us to make changes to your current mortgage.

One of our advisers will explain your best next steps.

Please call us or book an appointment to speak with a Mortgage Adviser.”

It’s not ideal to keep calling them, but this is what the person I last spoke to there advised me to do. I didn’t know before that it was possible to adjust at all after accepting a fixed rate mortgage. This is what Halifax advise and was step 4 of the 5 steps Jeremy Hunt outlined recently.. the bank should allow you to call and try to agree a lower rate if interest rates drop significantly. Maybe it was like this before and I didn’t know it, or maybe it’s an agreement banks have made with the government recently.

MWT

CrGlo said:

On the same day, Rishi Sunak said on LBC radio an average £800 mortgage would only rise to £1000 - so we were confused to hear this given that ours has gone from £792 to £1258 that same day (LTV is under 80%). Are these lower available rates on the news, and mentioned by Rishi, only available to new customers??

It isn't helpful to quote payments as a basis for comparison without an interest rate...

I do dislike the way politicians and the press reduce everything to these sound-bites as they can be very misleading...

CSI_Yorkshire

MWT said:

CrGlo said:

On the same day, Rishi Sunak said on LBC radio an average £800 mortgage would only rise to £1000 - so we were confused to hear this given that ours has gone from £792 to £1258 that same day (LTV is under 80%). Are these lower available rates on the news, and mentioned by Rishi, only available to new customers??

It isn't helpful to quote payments as a basis for comparison without an interest rate...

I do dislike the way politicians and the press reduce everything to these sound-bites as they can be very misleading...

... or a capital balance, or a term length