The differences were highlighted by David Nicholson, director of Bedford-based D & D Consultants, who recently spotted the anomaly while writing a case.
He explained: “I recently had a Halifax offer for a client who had an interest-only mortgage of £155,000 at an interest rate of 5.39 per cent. The interest-only figure, as calculated by all three sourcing systems, is £696.21. The Halifax offer came up with a figure of £693.20. I managed to establish, with Halifax, that its system calculates the payment by taking account of the day of the month the payment is to be made. As it charges interest on a daily basis it actually requires a different monthly payment to be made depending on when in the month the client chooses to pay. They have clearly not informed the sourcing systems of this anomaly.”
Mark Lofthouse, chief executive of sourcing system Mortgage Brain, commented: “At the time of product recommendation by the intermediary the client is not likely to know the actual start date of the mortgage and frequently can elect the day of the month when they would like payments to be made as part of the application process.”
He added: “In order to fairly compare companies respective products we calculate figures based on full months and apply either daily, monthly or annual interest calculations as appropriate.”
Paul Fincham, press spokesman at Halifax, responded: “If brokers are looking for cast iron guarantees then the illustrations on our website will provide that. As borrowers have the choice of paying a redemption fee or an arrangement ee we do not automatically add the arrangement fee to the payments.”
