www.iva.co.uk

Oh great, letter received today from our lovely mortgage company Santander to say that they are increasing their Standard Variable Rate from October 1st. 4.24% to 4.74%. Thank goodness we only have 8 months to go on our IVA!

It does seem unfair and new customers get better products. Existing customers with negative equity or poor credit files cannot move their mortgages so some banks are exploiting this.

Just found this which is quite interesting.

http://news.sky.com/story/976219/santan ... -whos-next

As you say Michael, they know we are trapped!

got same letter, but for me it was good new as im on a fixed rate of 5.95 till 1 jan 2013. make that a 1.21% cut.

What this basically states is that the banks won't maintain an SVR related to the bank rate when it has reached such an historically low level.

I go my letter today. nothing much I can do but you can bet your arse that any increase in bank of england rate will be passed straight on but not sure when that will happen for years....

have these banks no moral standards at all? a £50 per month increase can be enough to break someone.

I just don't understand why being in an IVA should mean that you can't fix a rate? It's not as if you are asking to borrow more money but just to be secure in knowing what your payments will be.

I think what is so ridiculous though is in essence all that will happen is those customers that Santander would probably really like to keep (ie the good ones who are credit friendly) will just move their mortgages elsewhere and they will just be left with those who have poor credit histories and/or negative equity who can't move, do they really want to just be left with those customers?, from a banks perspective all that does is increase their risk which seems stupid to me