first active current account mortgage

wannapress

hello, i would love if someone could shine some light on this for me!! i took out a CAM with first active in 2005, the rate on my loan offer was qouted not to exceed ECB +1.29. I am currently being charged ECB +1.15.I believe the terms of the mortgage where changed when the product was switched to the offset flexible mortgage (including the 1.15% rate).I dont have any material on this so if anyone has a similar mortgage would they mind verifying it for me for peace of mind. Also is there a condidtion with the mortgage that seemingly allows you to change house and keep the existing mortgage t's & c's ??? thanks in advance.

chris85

wannapress wrote: »

hello, i would love if someone could shine some light on this for me!! i took out a CAM with first active in 2005, the rate on my loan offer was qouted not to exceed ECB +1.29. I am currently being charged ECB +1.15.I believe the terms of the mortgage where changed when the product was switched to the offset flexible mortgage (including the 1.15% rate).I dont have any material on this so if anyone has a similar mortgage would they mind verifying it for me for peace of mind. Also is there a condidtion with the mortgage that seemingly allows you to change house and keep the existing mortgage t's & c's ??? thanks in advance.

If you change house you would need to sell your own one and clear the mortgage and then get a new mortgage for new property. They are no longer offering trackers so you would not be able to keep a tracker unfortunately for you.

Unsure about the rest of what you are looking to get info on but you could give your bank a ring. Just ask for terms of your current mortgage)

phormium

Yes the price promise on the CAM was reduced to 1.15% over ECB at some stage.

Regarding the moving house, it was indeed a feature of that mortgage that you could move it from property to property without having to clear it, thus keeping your tracker rate, however the problem arises if you want to increase the amount of the mortgage. Back in the old days that would just be underwritten as normal but I imagine now they will not allow an increase as it would mean increasing the amount at tracker rate. I would inquire though because I don't know how they would get around this if you actually qualified income wise for the increase as it was a feature of the mortgage.

Unfortunately you will find it hard to get someone with any real knowledge of the old FA products in UB now but worth trying if it would suit you.

I have one of these and have a copy of my loan offer, must have a read through to see what exactly it says.

chris85

phormium wrote: »

Yes the price promise on the CAM was reduced to 1.15% over ECB at some stage.

Regarding the moving house, it was indeed a feature of that mortgage that you could move it from property to property without having to clear it, thus keeping your tracker rate, however the problem arises if you want to increase the amount of the mortgage. Back in the old days that would just be underwritten as normal but I imagine now they will not allow an increase as it would mean increasing the amount at tracker rate. I would inquire though because I don't know how they would get around this if you actually qualified income wise for the increase as it was a feature of the mortgage.

Unfortunately you will find it hard to get someone with any real knowledge of the old FA products in UB now but worth trying if it would suit you.

I have one of these and have a copy of my loan offer, must have a read through to see what exactly it says.

they let mortgages to be moved over. That highly unusual but good i guess.

rameire

as above, they still allow the house move on the offset mortgage.
but it would be a lot more difficult to get a house move,

edit
why dont you ring them and ask for the ts&cs booklet for the offset mortgage

wannapress

Thankns Folks, i spoke with them last week but was weary of bringing up the interest rate as the only references I have to my mortgage are at the 1.29% rate.Also when i spoke to the bank about the house swither (i have no written confirmation of this) they confirmed that i could carry the mortgage on to a new property.What i dont want to do is sell the house and have them tell me that im not entitled to keep my current t's&c's and offer me a more expensive option.Thanks again

Ahem!

Very interesting reading. I have one of these too.

I wasn't so organised back in the day, however, and can't dig out a copy of the original loan offer or agreement. Any suggestions as to the best place to get a copy from. Solicitor? Ulster Bank (can they be trusted)?

rameire

yup ring ub, they should have it somewhere.
why cant they be trusted?
if you need to know more about the offset now, i know alot about it. just ask.
( interest savings, available facility, and so on)

Ahem!

Thanks Ramiere.

Basically, I see that as well as the mortgage transfer facility they also originally advertised something called an "equity release" option, whereby a customer could be approved for a larger amount than was required for the mortgage. This amount could then be drawn down at any stage during the life of the mortgage. So if you were originally approved for a larger sum you could conceivably now draw this down at the tracker rate should you wish to trade up.

That's the main reason I want to get my hands on a copy of the original loan offer. Also, on the statements I get from UB there is always a facility amount, about 20k or so, which is then reduced over time. I've always wondered what this is, but have never really gotten around to looking into it?

rameire

the equity release facility is basically the mortgage amount that was drawn down, im sure some were given a higher amount than the mortgage amount.
but the equity release facility then feeds the available facility that is there to use.
so it reduces over time in line with the mortgage.
as you say it is always about 20k more the the mortgage balance.
it will be different for every mortgage.

so the equity release facility is, total facility - balance = available facility
if you take any or part of the available facility. your repayments will increase in line with this to repay over the original term remaining.

i think for every person the total facility reduces in November
( once a year ), so if you want the most the best time to withdraw the available facility is in october.

if you want to trade up, you still need to go through underwriting, for approval of the amount even if it was less then the original drawdown amount.

one good thing about the offset.
if the ecb goes up the bank have 30 days to amend the rate
if the ecb goes down. the bank have only 7 days to amend the rate

hope it all makes sence

wannapress

Thanks Ramiere very helpful , i might send uyou a pm if thats cool.

Ahem!

Yes. Thanks very much. It makes perfect sense. And very useful information.

My remaining facility and accumulated savings are unlikely to be enough to secure a suitable trade-up, however, so I imagine I will be contacting the bank to investigate the possibility of adding to the facility.

Not sure what my chances of this will be, however, or what would happen to the tracker in this scenario?

rameire

if you get approved for extra finance on your offset mortgage for a home move or a top up, you will keep the rate on the offset mortgage, as it is laid out in the ts&cs

Ahem!

......So that would seem to suggest that it is highly unlikely, whatever my actual eligibility, that I'd be approved for such a top up, as this would essentially amount to the bank loaning new funds at a loss making tracker rate.

Or could they lend the additional funds only at a higher rate?

rameire

trust me
they do lend still on the offset rate
i know of a couple who have gone though the house move
and some who have gone for a top up.

Ahem!

OK. I won't give up hope just yet then.

Any insight into the eligibility criteria for the top-up?

rameire

sorry, dont know.
but you do have your available facility you can withdraw, this is a top up as such.
and all you need is proof of life cover.

wannapress

Hello , looking over the thread again and i was wondering with the latest UB announcement allowing trackers to move would this apply to these mortgages as they are technically a variable mortgage that will not exceed the ECB PLUS 1.15%?

rameire

that was always allowed on this product as it is in the ts&cs already.

wannapress

rameire wrote: »

that was always allowed on this product as it is in the ts&cs already.

Hi Ramiere i cant find any info in my terms and conditionds booklet and i also dont have any reference to any documenet stating the change of interest rate from 1.29% to 1.15% , i am guessing that it was sent out and i have somehow misplaced it. should i contact Uklster to resend the First Active t&cs out to me or have you any advice?

thanks

phormium

Don't think there was anything sent out to customers when the rate changed from 1.29% to 1.15% over ECB, only required ad in papers as far as I know. All new current account mortgages issued after the change had the new rate on them, I know my old loan offer shows the old 1.29% price promise.

It was always a feature of the current account mortgage that you could move it from property to property, Ulster Bank will be familiar with this and even if they are not in the branch a phone call to Mortgage Dept in Head Office will give them the info on how to do it.

CathBee

Fairly new to boards, so apologies if I make any mistakes.

Re the CAMs, we have been told by UB that we are delinquent on the CAM now Offset Mortgage, which would be hilarious if it weren't so annoying and offensive because we have managed to almost always maintain more in our current account than is owed in the mortgage/facility, and certainly that is the case now, we have been very careful with our money to make sure that this is how it is.

My husband met with a bank official today who had called him in to see if he was interested in investing in some product or other, and DH brought up two issues we have with UB,

1. the failure to translate the old FA sort codes and Ac nos over even though they have known about SEPA for how many years already(?!) and now expect us to write to several different utilities ourselves, when they were the ones who bought out FA, not like we changed bank on purpose,
2, that they seem to think we are delinquent when they are still sending us letters that state monthly repayment €0.

We have called the Mortgage services in UB before, several times already, trying to get this sorted out, and it seems to us that nobody in UB actually understands how the interest and capital payments are calculated, and we got nowhere. They first thing we know about it was when a while back they sent us one monthly repayment statement that said something like 'we have arranged your payment holiday as requested' when we had infact done nothing of the sort, never ever asked for that as we had no need to!!

The bank official went off and left DH waiting for over 20mins and came back with a lady who is apparently the bad debts person for that UB branch. DH says she was extremely unpleasant to him and wouldn't entertain that UB could possibly be in the wrong about our Offset and that we had been 'refusing' to pay for over two years, and that they had written to us several times about this, all of which is untrue. In fact anytime we have briefly dipped below the facility level in the CA (like at Christmas) we have been sent the usual monthly repayment letter stating something like your monthly repayment is €2.41...which has duly been collected by DD.

Can any one tell me what we should do here? Where do we go next with this? Can we apply under Data Protection for all of the correspondence that they allegedly have sent, or do they have to supply that upon request in any case?

I just want to know exactly what is going on here for once and for all, and then I see on the news tonight how underhanded RBS and U~B have been with business customers here and I wonder are they trying to squeeze unprofitable mortgage holders like us out too.
Thoughts and advice much appreciated.

phormium

Are you actually making monthly payments on the mortgage? Even if you have more in the facility account than is owing on the mortgage there still needs to be a monthly mortgage payment of the capital, you will be charged no interest but without a monthly payment however small the loan would never be cleared.

rameire

im not sure what you mean about translating the old account numbers over,
the offset was moved to a new system so it got new account numbers, the old ones are not in use.
as for sepa, hmmmm.

the problem with the offset mortgage is that not many people know how it works.

officially if the amount in the current account is greater than the mortgage amount it should start redemption procedures.
and the current account balance used to clear the mortgage.

as the current account is greater than the mortgage amount, it should not pull any direct debits as it seems to be doing, so there is nothing wrong their.

the only problem i see is the staff havnt a clue.
what you need to do is try and get to talk to someone in the Dublin centre and not in the north or in scotland

phormium

The offset was moved to new numbers and they worked fine until now but it seems they are not automatically being converted for Sepa unlike ordinary UB accounts so we have all got letters to tell us we need to contact all our direct debits or payments attached to the facility account to give them the new numbers.

It is correct that a balance in the facility in excess of the o/s mortgage balance would trigger redemption but I thought that was fixed for want of a better description as not everyone intends that to happen and that interest was actually paid on the surplus balance? Probably simpler to just keep the balance exactly the same if paying no interest is the goal.

Either way though there should be a monthly payment unless as the poster says they have been given a payment break, even though they don't seem to have requested one.

rameire

phormium wrote: »

The offset was moved to new numbers and they worked fine until now but it seems they are not automatically being converted for Sepa unlike ordinary UB accounts so we have all got letters to tell us we need to contact all our direct debits or payments attached to the facility account to give them the new numbers.

sounds about right for UB.

It is correct that a balance in the facility in excess of the o/s mortgage balance would trigger redemption but I thought that was fixed for want of a better description

nothing was fixed, its just not really known.

Either way though there should be a monthly payment unless as the poster says they have been given a payment break, even though they don't seem to have requested one.

the way the mortgage system sees it though is that the balance is at zero, so no payments are due on it.

phormium

Yes, sounds like UB

I have an offset and the balance of the facility often exceeds the mortgage, not by much but never dips below the mortgage amount and I pay regular monthly payments. I have never received anything telling me this triggers redemption, I really don't think it does. The payments don't vary as I have requested a payment in excess of the actual payment but I still get a letter each time the rate changes to tell me what the actual payment has changed to and also says something like but as you have agreed to pay an amount in excess of this no change will be made.

Initially with the CAM there were two options when interest was saved, reduced payments or reduced term, at some stage, I can't remember when the reduced payments option was removed and everyone had to agree to move to the new terms, this meant everyone had to make a monthly repayment regardless even if the amount in the facility meant there was no interest charge. There were a few customers who would not agree and a temporary workaround had to be found, perhaps that is still in operation.

jacobusc

Anyone have one of these - I am pretty sure that when I signed up it was guaranteed that no banking fees woudl apply on your current account - lo and behold UB just sent letters out stating that my current account will eb charged a maintenance fee ! I queried this and they stated that there are no exemptions and it was subject to change. Is this correct ?

rameire

condition 12 of the personal ts and cs.
section b.
charges may be revised from time to time and we will notify you of such changes in accordance with condition 10.

condition 10 a
we may alter any of the terms and conditions in this part A for the resons set out below on giving you at least 30 days prior written notice.

and so on and so forth.