News

Welcome to our news section, where we will keep you up to date with the latest news concerning the property market, conveyancing matters, mortgage products and of course Quick Legal Quotes!

Below is our most recent piece of news, and you can select the links on the right for archive news strories about conveyancing, mortgage and property related issues.

19 April 2012

Halifax increases interest rates for its mortgages

Whilst the Bank of England has kept the interest rate steady the Halifax Bank of Scotland Group has raised its cap on the Standard Variable Rate from 3 percentage points to 3.75 percentage points from the thirty first of April 2012.

Around a million borrowers could see themselves paying 4.25 percent on their mortgages as opposed to the current rate of 3.5 percent. The Halifax have not stated yet whether or not they will raise the rate itself, brokers believe this to be the case.

The big fear is that other lenders will see fit to follow suit, as indeed the Royal Bank of Scotland have done on some of their mortgage products, being the Natwest and Royal Bank of Scotland lifetime offset trackers and some of the One Account products.

The lender is blaming the increased cost of funding lending as the reason behind the cost increases, but this could leave millions of struggling families even worse off, as many families will be stuck with their lender. They may be unable to re-mortgage due to a very high loan to value ratio due to the crash in house prices or because of bad credit brought about by the struggles of the last few years. If people find themselves struggling, they should speak to their lender to see if there are any other options available to them.