Santander have changed my mortgage to an offset?

fewcloudy · 13 November 2023 at 2:37PM

@Bem56

Exact same here, and no doubt the same for1000's of other A&L mortgage holders. No need to panic, and no your money has not been lost!

The letter you received explains everything, quite clearly I thought. No change in terms and conditions whatsoever. Same interest rate, same tracker, same facility to overpay by as much as you want. And so on.

You will have seen your new balance, which I am sure is what you expected it to be i.e. the balance of your mortgage after all your years of (over) payments.

As it explains in the letter however, you do have to ask them if you wish to be able to make changes to your payments etc. rather than just View the balance. Once that is sorted, just change the payment to whatever you want it to be (£1200).

The balance will decrease by what they asked for (£528) minus interest, and your overpayment goes into a savings pot.
When the balance of the savings pot equals the balance left on mortgage, your mortgage is payed off. No earlier or later than you expected it to happen when you were with A&L.

I've not had an offset mortgage before but that is what I imagined them to be like, so I think that is what you (we) have now.

Hope that helps.

Bem56 · 13 November 2023 at 4:26PM

We didn’t get a letter explaining any of those terms and conditions etc you mentioned. Can you see the overpayments accumulated in a separate account, I guess this is my issue I can’t see the accumulation of overpayments?

fewcloudy · 13 November 2023 at 5:24PM

I assumed when you mentioned receiving a letter in your first post it would be the same thing I received, but it doesn't matter now. I have tried to attach all I got from them, I don't know if it will work.

But to answer your main question and your main issue, YES YES YES, you are able to see exactly what is accumulating in your Savings Pot

Once you have set up your online banking to allow you to make the changes you want to make, you can go into your 'new' mortgage account on your normal Santander online banking portal.

Assuming you have asked them to be able to View&Transact rather than the default View Only, you will see a lot more information about your payments than you ever got from your old monthly statements from A&L.

Above your mortgage summary statement, is a link says "Click here for your Savings Statement".

The initial welcome letter/info also included paper forms for people who perhaps want to make changes to their payments etc by letter. Old school if you like, and copy included below.