Skipton BS swallows UK’s oldest building society
Today, Skipton Building Society (89 branches, 830,000 members, the UK's fourth largest) takes over Chesham Building Society (3 branches, 20,000 members, one of the smallest — and, established in 1845, the UK's oldest). Background to the Skipton takeover of Chesham Building Society Despite the ongoing furore about Skipton's "exceptional circumstances" SVR increase for existing mortgage [...]
Santander’s rash of mortgage rate cuts
Santander cuts its fixed rates today by up to 0.40 per cent Responding to a general increase in mortgage market competitiveness, Santander has trimmed the rates on its five-year fixed rate mortgages by up to 0.25 per cent. The range includes a 4.99% deal for purhases only (70 per cent LTV limit, £995 fee), or [...]
Newcastle BS launches 90% loan-to-value mortgages
High LTV mortgages not just for first-time buyers Newcastle Building Society today launches mortgages for up-to-90-per-cent LTV borrowers. They're not only intended for first-timers into the housing market, but also for purchasers looking to move on up. What they won't cover is remortgagers looking to increase their borrowing and make up for reduced equity. The range [...]
Never mind buy-to-let: renting out your own home is also getting harder
If you're an owner occupier but you decide to live elsewhere for a short while, most people would assume it's OK to rent out your home. However, on a residential mortgage you need what's called "consent to let" from your mortgage lender — and they're making it more difficult to let out your existing property [...]
Principality turns 150 and bucks building society trend
Wales' principal building society approaching its anniversary relatively free of struggles While many building societies are struggling to balance the demands of savers and mortgage borrowers — with some looking to merge and others simply losing custom to the banks — Principality is one society that looks a little bit different to its competitors at [...]
Skipton mortgage hike: what’s exceptional about now?
Skipton Building Society hikes its mortgage SVR by over 1 percentage point, affecting thousands. When you're a mortgage customer sticking to your building society's Standard Variable Rate, you expect the rate to move only in line with the Bank of England Base Rate — as it has done for years. You don't expect it to [...]
Building Society merger: Yorkshire and Chelsea
Yorkshire and Chelsea building societies are planning a merger that has just been approved by both sets of members. If the formalities go ahead, the resulting building society will be the UK's second largest after Nationwide, with combined assets around £35bn. Yorkshire BS currently occupies the #2 spot on its own, with 2 million members, [...]
Yorkshire BS makes huge cuts in its rates
More January sales on mortgages as Yorkshire Building Society cuts interest by up to 0.60% They must mean it when they say there are "signs of an increase in activity in the housing market", because Yorkshire Building Society are looking to welcome in thousands of new borrowers with a radically discounted mortgage line-up. As well [...]
9 out of 10 mortgage applicants accepted at RBS
CEO reveals off-the-cuff statistic at meeting of Treasury select committee RBS Group — the banking conglomerate that owns mortgage lenders Natwest, Royal Bank Of Scotland, Ulsterbank, First Active and Coutts & Co — claimed that it had stepped "into the breach" of UK mortgage lending since many other lenders had disappeared from the market. Its chief [...]
Santander enters High Street with a fixed-rate mortgage splash
Spanish rebrand of Abbey and Bradford & Bingley branches ushers in new phase of mortgage competition One of the first things Santander has done on introducing its name to the UK High Street is to introduce competitive two-year fixed rate mortgage deals. As the first of 1,000 Abbey and Bradford & Bingley branch shopfronts puts [...]
