Mark Williams's Blog (104)

Lenders are urging the government to pay out Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) to reflect borrower's mortgage rates and save around £26m a year or almost £40m with a cap of 1.5%.

Borrowers are eligible for SMI  if they are on income support, jobseeker's allowance and pension credit , and can claim payments to cover their mortgage interest at a flat rate of 3.63%, with all payments paid direct to the…

The mortgage indemnity scheme originally intended for first-time buyers is to be extended to all UK buyers of new homes at up to £500,000.

Housing minister Grant Shapps has renamed the scheme New Buy Guarantee, and it is to be launched officially in March.

The NewBuy Guarantee scheme is welcome news for aspiring home owners, significantly reducing the deposit needed to…

Recent figures have revealed that more families have satellite television than life insurance – in fact half of families have satellite TV but just 40% have life insurance.

The report also found only 13% of families had critical illness cover while 14% had insurance for their mobile phone.

Similarly 13% had taken out an extended warranty on electrical items, more than…

Jimi Hendrix , Diana Princess of Wales, Barry White , Bob Marley and Jill Dando... What have these people got in common ?

Well other than the obvious that they are all deceased, the common factor is that they all died either without making a will or failed to update it before dying.

Jimi Hendrix’s family squabbled for years over his estate as he died…

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) absence management annual survey report recently highlighted that stress is the second biggest cause of short term absences and one of the leading causes of all long-term absences for non-manual workers.

It also highlighted a perhaps previously unknown fact that women are nearly three times more likely to take stress-related absence than men,…

Mortgage Market Review

You will have read over recent days about something called the MMR ( Mortgage Market Review) which is the FSA’s attempt , before they disappear into the sunset, at preventing a return of the risky mortgage lending seen in boom times, by ensuring that common sense standards continue to apply in future.

Below is a summary of the…

Buying property is now more cost-effective than it has ever been compared to renting, proving cheaper in 47 out of 50 British towns, compared to 40 out of 50 this time last year, according to research.

A study showed that renting is 15% more expensive on average than owning across the country, up from a 10% premium last year.

It examined the prices and rents of 78,000…

A proposed EU Directive threatens to severely damage the private rented housing sector according to one of the largest landlord bodies, report the RLA.

The draft directive is aimed at tackling irresponsible lending on mortgages following property booms and busts in countries such as Spain and Ireland Under its provisions, when assessing the ability of the applicant to afford mortgage repayments, lenders will not be able to…

The government recently announced its backing of a mortgage indemnity scheme that will allow higher loan to value lending for buyers of new build properties.

The full details of the scheme won’t be finalised until the spring, but we have compared the new scheme with Firstbuy, the government backed shared equity scheme announced in this year’s Budget.

We…

The Bank of England has said that mortgage interest rates could increase next year, as lenders pass on the increased costs of wholesale funding.

Its Financial Stability Report, published today, said that, since 2009, the profitability of new mortgage lending has reduced, because lenders have failed to keep rates in line with higher wholesale funding and other costs.

With…

Overseas property owners have been urged to inform HMRC if no disclosure on tax has been made already.

 

Tax specialists are warning advisers to notify their foreign property owning clients of a new investigation team established by HMRC to track down people who own land and property abroad by ‘data mining' publicly available records.

 

One tax consultant and former…

The latest FSA rules will cost the City up to £1.4bn a year from now on, according to the regulator's figures.

Regulations consulted on and introduced over the past 12 months by the FSA will create compliance costs of £1.1bn to £1.4bn annually, according to figures compiled by Hargreaves Lansdown.

 …

The government has revealed the names of the lenders that have signed up to its indemnity scheme announced today as part of its housing strategy.

It says Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide, Royal Bank of Scotland…

I read this the other day and couldnt resist putting it in a blog - enjoy!

The Banking Crisis simply explained...

John bought a donkey from a farmer for £100 and the farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.  But the next day he drove up and said, “Sorry son, but I have some bad news.  The donkey’s…

Lloyds Banking Group has become the first big bank to raise Standard Variable Rates, prompting suggestions that the era of borrowing at rock-bottom rates is drawing to a close as the Eurozone crisis deepens.

The move will affect more than 175,000 borrowers who took out mortgages from Bank of Scotland and The Mortgage Business, who will see their rates rise from 4.84% to 4.95%…

New research reveals that 1.5 million households may not have enough life cover to pay off their mortgage if either partner were to die.

The survey of 3,000 highlighted the possibility that millions of people may well be leaving something sizeable for their loved ones if they were to die suddenly - a mortgage debt. …

Mortgage borrowers are missing out on what have become the lowest fixed-rate mortgages in decades, with half not having reviewed their mortgage since March 2009.



According to the website unbiased, many borrowers (37%) would still prefer a Standard Variable Rate deal, and if they did fix, would be prepared to…

The report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which it describes as the most far-reaching analysis of the UK tax system in more than 30 years, also recommends integrating income tax and National Insurance payments.

Targets for change include Inheritance Tax where the individual would be taxed and not the estate on…

The Sunday Times has reported that there are now clear signs that the ongoing turmoil in the Eurozone is starting to push up mortgage rates.

Private banks, which often lead the high street banks by several weeks, have started to increase rates for the first time in more than two years.

Mortgage borrowers, particularly those who are on their lender's base lending rate ( Standard Variable Rate) and have been so for some time, are therefore encouraged to take…

Three years ago today, the collapse of Lehman Brothers sent shockwaves around the world, resulting in sheer panic in the financial markets and driving the final nail in the coffin of the wholesale funding markets.

Suddenly, big banks really could be allowed to fail.

 …