The National Consumer Council, which was recently renamed Consumer Focus following a merger, has reported that it is not part of a relatively new website that was set up to help consumers find the cheapest doorstep lenders. The reports indicate that the consumer watchdog is trying to distance itself from the website, which was set [...]

Over the past decade having damaged credit did create problems for those that were looking to take out finance. However, in the days of easy credit even those with damaged credit were able to get finance at a relatively affordable rate. However, these days are now gone and now those with bad credit will find [...]

Things have not been easy for the average first time buyers for many years when it comes to getting onto the property ladder. The last ten years has seen many first time buyers priced out of the market, as property prices in the UK have rocketed, leaving many unable to entertain the idea of getting [...]

Most people are well aware that the financial sector has been deeply affected over the past year as a result of the global credit crunch, which has affected all sectors of the financial industry and has seen credit conditions become far tighter and borrowing rates become far more expensive.
However, over the past year the base [...]

Consumers are being warned that over the past few months the interest rates charges on personal loans have rocketed, and rates are now well over double the official base rate of 2 percent, with more than a 5 percent margin between the base rate and the average rate of interest charged on these loans. In [...]

Reports have shown that October saw a further decrease in mortgage approval levels, falling by nearly two thousand compared to September and plunging by a massive 52 percent compared to October of last year. It is thought that part of the reason behind the fall in mortgage approval levels is that consumers have found other [...]

Recent figures have shown that rental prices on homes are being driven down as a result of the many homes that remain unsold on the UK’s property market. Property sales have been very low over recent months, and although they have increased slightly over recent weeks due to more realistic pricing from sellers, they did [...]

For many years first time buyers have struggled to get onto the property ladder for one reason or another. For a number of years the problem has been the soaring price of property in the UK, but more recently, even thought house prices have been falling, other problems have emerged for first time buyers. This [...]

As part of the package of measures that was announced in the recent pre-budget report, homeowners who lost their jobs are set to get extra help from the government to ensure that they do not lose their homes. Previously, the government covered interest payments on mortgages for those that had been out of work for [...]

A recent article has suggested that struggling homeowners who are finding it difficult to make ends meet each month could benefit from opting for an interest only mortgage in order to reduce monthly repayments. It also suggests that those getting onto the property ladder for the first time could keep their monthly costs down to [...]

The Council of Mortgage Lenders has recently spoken out to defend its member banks, after some banks were criticised for failing to pass on base rate cuts and were accused of making a profit. The CML insists that its member banks are actually profiteering, and recently released a statement to this effect.

If you are in danger of facing repossession at the moment then you are not alone, as there has been a sharp increase in the level of repossessions of late, with more and more homeowners losing their homes. In fact, figures have recently been released that show the level of repossessions for the third quarter [...]

Many consumers in the UK have had a very difficult financial year over the past twelve months for a number of reasons. Whilst interest rates have now dropped to 3% after some drastic cuts by the Bank of England many have spent the past year trying to cope with high repayments, which has left them [...]

The subject of PPI, or Payment Protection Insurance, has been a controversial one for the past couple of years, with a huge amount of controversy relating to the mis-selling or this cover, and financial authorities really clamping down on lenders and providers that are found to be breaching guidelines relating to PPI sales. The bad [...]

According to recent reports many borrowers may start to benefit from the recent base interest rate cuts, as many lenders – under pressure from the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown – are now responding the recent rate cuts, and are cutting their own borrowing interest rates accordingly. In October of this year the Bank of England, [...]

According to the results of a recent survey HSBC is the most competitive mortgage provider, having made forty two appearances in a top ten poll of mortgage providers by an online comparison site. The results were up to the end of September of this year, and resulted in the bank being dubbed the most consistently [...]

Officials from the Nationwide Building Society have recently stated that the fall in house prices in the UK could continue over the course of 2009 and even into 2010. The building society, which has slashed mortgage lending like many other lenders since the onset of the global credit crunch, has said that the housing market [...]

Following the recent 1.5% base rate cut, and in response to calls from the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, a number o major lenders in the UK have said that they will be passing on the full 1.5% rate cut to borrowers over the coming weeks. As hoped by the government this could help to ease [...]

According to recent figures house prices have fallen for yet another consecutive month, and after a fairly small price fall in September figures show that house prices have now fallen by a further 2.2 percent in October. The figure comes from the Halifax, and officials from the lender have said that the October fall has [...]