Provider that went back on portability of mortgage

CHOOSING A mortgage and provider are two of the most stressful financial decisions to take. Even if guided by a broker, the integrity of the lender is paramount and the small print should honour the undertaking given.

One of the key issues to agree is the opportunity to continue the loan if you move property. Such portability should be standard.

It has been recognised through the centuries with Wemmick insisting to “get hold of portable property” in Charles Dickens’ penultimate novel, Great Expectations, published in 1861.

Imagine the horror for those who do not just expect portability to be part of a loan package but actually select such a mortgage to later find that the provider reneges on this key aspect.

Step forward Scottish Widows, forming part of the Lloyds Banking Group, along with Bank of Scotland and Halifax. Just two years ago this month, Scottish Widows was selling home loans with the facility to take the loan on if there is a home move.

Those who borrowed with the clear understanding that the mortgage could support a transfer discovered a year later that the same provider had decided to introduce a retrospective condition to not allow portability.

Those who wanted to move would have to redeem the loan and be penalised with an early redemption charge.

Such underhand methods might be applied with a direct client in the hope they were naive.

However, those who used a mortgage broker fared no better as the lender did not advise this key group of its decision.

Just how cavalier can bankers become.

Even in-house lawyers should guide the slick ones that retrospective changes are illegal. Such episodes bring no credit on Lloyds who clearly need to pull in their errant subsidiary. It also hardly enhances the public view of bankers.