MORE banks

are ditching their super-cheap mortgages after the Bank of England warned interest rates could rise. It emerged last weekend that seven of the biggest lenders had put up rates on dozens of deals.

Since then another eight firms – including Barclays, NatWest and Lloyds Bank – have increased rates for customers taking out new fixed deals.

In some cases rates have gone up by as much as 0.9 percentage points. A homeowner taking out a typical mortgage of £150,000 could now pay up to £828 a year more as a result of the changes. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has signalled that rates are set to rise soon, probably from 0.25 per cent to 0.5 per cent.

Charlotte Nelson, an analyst at mortgage data firm Moneyfacts.co.uk, said: ‘There are still good deals out there but you need to move fast because they won’t be there long.’