Birmingham Midshire Finally Lowered My Mortgage Interest Rate

For those of you who remember, last month I had a moment of despair when I broke down into tears, bitching about how Birmingham Midshire Didn’t Lower Their Rates when the Bank Of England reduced their base rate, consequently I was talking about remortgaging. A handful of other lenders lowered their rates and informed their borrowers almost immediately, but NOT Birmingham Midshire.

So what happens this morning? I wake up, go downstairs to check the mail, and I get this letter:

BM send me this letter over a month (6 weeks) after the base rate changed, and they plan on making the changes almost 3 months after the rate lowered. Psh. Is that standard practice, to wait that long for either of those things? The letter title says, “important news“- it couldn’t have been THAT important. I bet if rates increase again, I’ll get a letter informing me of increases a lot quicker than that (but don’t quote me on that- I don’t want to be the fool).

So, did I throw my toys out of the pram prematurely? Nah, I don’t think so. Keeping a borrower waiting over a month to inform them about vital approaching changes and also taking 3 months to actually make the change is a bit too long for my likings. I still plan on remortgaging. Not purely because of the snail-like movement BM have comfortably embraced, but also because the lenders standard rate kicks in shortly (this summer), which will change my variable rate north of 7%. Ouch!! I’m not actually sure what rate i’m paying at the moment, but it’s around the 5.7% mark (at a guess). You would think they would mention my current rate on the letter. They’ve changed my rate, yet don’t tell me what to. I guess they want me do my own calculations based on what I will be paying and what I’m currently paying. Actually, I don’t fancy doing the math, I think I’ll call them to get an exact figure…

*/me calls BM to find out exact interest rate I am paying*

Ok, right, BM offices aren’t open on Saturdays…GREAT.

Someone kindly please indulge me with their Mortgage related stories. If anyone else benefited from the base rate change, can you please tell me:

a) how long it took for your mortgage lender to inform you
b) when the change was made effective (or if you’re still waiting)
c) who your lender is.

That would be much appreciated!

Attention! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so you're notified of all new blog entries.

Talk / 4 Comments left so far

RefinancingTips wrote this on 2008-04-29 07:28:36 Great read. I think I'll subscribe to this as it has some good info! Thanks. I do apppreciate the blog :-) 1

Mark B wrote this on 2008-11-15 10:27:49 Im with BM myself and believe it or not im on a tracker morgage which tracks 0.81 % BELOW the bank of England base . Im still waiting for my payments to drop from the 0.5% drop let alone the 1% drop. I should be tracking at 2.19% but no letter as yet. Its all a con. Its up for renewal in May 2009 as well 2

Serita G wrote this on 2008-12-08 15:50:23 I'm with BM also and I cannot believe that it takes such a long time for them to notify of changes at all! Nor how ridiculous the letters are as they really don't tell you anything at all about your particular product! I recieved a letter today informing me about the change that took place in November which commences in January. I called them to find why the change takes so long to take effect as the letter informs you that if your payments are between the 1st and 8th of the month it takes 2 months to take effect and any date after that one month, (my payments are around the middle of the month), the assistant's explaination was as clear as mud and I am still none the wiser as to why the changes are taking so long to take effect. If the payments were not coming down I think at this stage I would have been really frustrated with the whole BM experience as it stands, I plan to brace myself for tougher times ahead and bite my toungue for now. Surely martin lewis will be notifying us soon that we can claim some form of compenstation back from them for dragging their heels in this manner! 3

nalini naidoo wrote this on 2010-07-05 22:59:38 we are BM also and they too did not inform us of change of interest rate months after it happened. furthermore they changed our mortgage product without our consent via a broker who also did not inform us and I complained to them but still would not change it and said that we would have to pay the for the change over.
They should have had a signature from us to change our product however they said that the broker had informed us via telephone about the change.
I need to know can they do this without a written consent.
if there is anyone who has experienced something similiar please can you help us.
many thanks
NN 4

Please leave a comment

Click here to cancel reply.

*Name

*Email Address

*Your comment

Notify me via email when someone else leaves a comment