As you may have read in the tabloids the Skipton Building Society has reneged on its mortgage offer guarantee. It made a promise that its base rate would be no more than 3% over the Bank of England base rate but, oh treachery and double-dealing, they announced their new standard variable rate at 4.95% effective 1st March 2010. A whooping 1.45% increase on their old rate and now 4.45% over the BoE base rate!
Legal action is anticipated but where does this leave your typical Skipton client in the interim? The simple answer is, out of pocket, so our advice is to get urgent professional advice to consider your options. One of my clients did just that and I am pleased to relay a happy ending.
In anticipation of the uplift I submitted a remortgage application to the Woolwich. Now, credit where credit is due. Whilst they had a good rate Woolwich are generally regarded as one of the slowest mortgage processing companies but in this case they received the proposal on the 9th February and completed on the 26th! Application fee of just £199, with free legal work and a fixed rate of 3.89% saving my client in the order of £600 per annum.
So what’s the message to the 59,000 Skipton clients stranded on the new rate? Call us urgently!
Alex Pangratiou worked for Limetree Financial Services until April 2012. Feel free to contact another member of our team for help or advice.
