It appears First Direct have changed their criteria around offset mortgages. You now need to earn over 50k single or 75k for a joint mortgage regardless of the LTV. I discovered this today when applying to move my mortgage to First Direct, it only changed last week.
Why am I moaning about this? I've been a first direct customer for 10 years and have had a mortgage with them before, when I moved house two years ago I was contracting at the time and they wouldnt offer me a mortgage on my new house despite it only being a 22% LTV (72k on 330k house). No amount of moaning or asking to speak to an underwriter would get them to budge so I took a mortgage with Halifax, who offered me a 300k mortgage. At that point I was frustrated but now i'm furious as I am an employee again rather than a contractor and they've changed the rules again.
I want a mortage of 40k (my salary is 47.5k) and have savings of 20-30k depending on the time of month and year so will only be paying interest on a max of 20k, sometimes as little as 10k. I like the comfort of having those savings available to me should I need them which an offset mortgage provides.
In reality there are plenty of other options open to me but I needed to have a rant somewhere about First Direct. I love their customer service for every other aspect but their inflexibility on mortgages drives me mad. I've got to be one of the lowest risk customers around.
Why am I moaning about this? I've been a first direct customer for 10 years and have had a mortgage with them before, when I moved house two years ago I was contracting at the time and they wouldnt offer me a mortgage on my new house despite it only being a 22% LTV (72k on 330k house). No amount of moaning or asking to speak to an underwriter would get them to budge so I took a mortgage with Halifax, who offered me a 300k mortgage. At that point I was frustrated but now i'm furious as I am an employee again rather than a contractor and they've changed the rules again.
I want a mortage of 40k (my salary is 47.5k) and have savings of 20-30k depending on the time of month and year so will only be paying interest on a max of 20k, sometimes as little as 10k. I like the comfort of having those savings available to me should I need them which an offset mortgage provides.
In reality there are plenty of other options open to me but I needed to have a rant somewhere about First Direct. I love their customer service for every other aspect but their inflexibility on mortgages drives me mad. I've got to be one of the lowest risk customers around.