www.iva.co.uk

We are now entering the fifth and hopefully final year of our IVA.

I have spoken to my mortgage lender regarding changing my deal to another fixed rate as my current deal has ended. I fully informed the lender about our circumstances and because we are not looking to borrow any further money, there will be no problem changing the mortgage rate. An offer of mortgage is on the way to me to sign as I write this.

My only concerns is that my IP may not be happy with me changing my deal although I do not recall reading anything in my original contract stating I could not do this.

Can I change my mortgage deal or not? It will be changing to a four year fixed rate.

Thanks.

Not sure is the answer hopefully a professional will be along shortly to help. I wish our mortgage provider was of the same as yours as Santander told us they would never offer us another mortgage again even though we have never been in arrears etc just purely because of iva

There will be no problem updating your deal as long as your payments are not increasing that much. Which lender are you with incidentally?. I have seen others get renewed deals but they are fairly rare.

Your IP should have little problem with this especially if it does not mean your payments need adjusted.

Thanks for the replies. The mortgage is with Bank of Ireland, I have been with them for over 7 years.

The payments are increasing by less than £10 so won't affect my monthly payments.

The only other thing that I had a query about was, if I don't renew the deal, there could be equity in the property after fees. If I do sign the new deal, there is a very little chance of equity after fees unless house prices go up dramatically.

Would or could this upset the creditors?

I assume the new deal will have a redemption penalty attached. The fairest would be if you agreed to an extension if one were required without the penalty. Probably irrelevant anyway as you need to be able to raise a minimum of £5,000 at 85% loan to value.