Paucity of mortgage statements/information

[Jim'llfixit]

Hi

New to this great forum.

Myself and my wife took out our first mortgage with AIB last September and while we have no real complaints so far, it seems you get more information when you buy a kettle worth €20 than you do when you take out a massive mortgage of over €300k. Its harder than we would expect to communicate with them, particulary if we want to increase our overpayments, for instance.

The statements we get tell us little about how quickly we are putting a dent in the mortgage.

Could i throw out these quick questions - how often do people get statements on their mortgages and are they happy with the quantity and quality of information contained within them? Would you like to see more regular statements and better information?


thanks in advance

 

[Dreamerb]

We get annual statements, which show what the interest and capital element of each month's payment is; the applicable rate; the opening and closing capital balances. The letter of offer also has a good deal of information on the terms and conditions of the loan.

More regular statements aren't, IMO, very useful unless you have quite a few extra transactions. Does AIB have a facility where you can monitor your mortgage online? That's one thing I do like having, even if the amount is going to remain rather unnerving for another few years.

Overpayment instructions should be specific and in writing to ensure they are applied as you wish.

What's your problem with what you get? What else do you expect? And do you not have the running balances on your statement?

 

[ClubMan]

it seems you get more information when you buy a kettle worth €20 than you do when you take out a massive mortgage of over €300k.

Did you not get detailed information about your loan offer and the terms & conditions of the mortgage agreement? That would be normal. As would be receiving at least an annual mortgage statement.

Its harder than we would expect to communicate with them, particulary if we want to increase our overpayments, for instance.

Just write to them.

The statements we get tell us little about how quickly we are putting a dent in the mortgage.

What do the statements contain? I'm pretty sure that they must detail the opening capital balance, all repayments over the period covered and the closing capital balance.

Could i throw out these quick questions - how often do people get statements on their mortgages and are they happy with the quantity and quality of information contained within them? Would you like to see more regular statements and better information?

When I was with the EBS I used to get them annually (with additional updates whenever I made accelerated repayment changes) and they contained sufficient detail for my needs.

 

[Jim'llfixit]

Hi

Thanks for the replies. To be brutally honest, I'm not sure what it says because we haven't been sent one statement yet (!) but I've requested it and once i find out, i'll let you know - sorry for the vagueness of the query. I don't mean so much the info that you get at the beginning, but the statements that you are supposed to get on an annual or quarterly basis on the status of the mortgage (we'd prefer more regular statements than every year, tbh).

But based onconversations with office colleagues and friends who are also newish mortgage holders, the lack of regular info seems a common complaint, exacerbated the difficult of extracting useful info from your lender. We did write to them regarding overpayments and that worked ok.

You both might be right in the sense that the statements you get would give enough info to keep you happy but I was kind of wondering if the same sentiment that exists among my colleagues and friends about mortgage updates would be replicated here.

I was noted this comment from a SBP article a few months ago:

[FONT=&quot]Mortgages are the biggest financial commitment for most people particularly in light of today's rising house prices. However, people often don't read or understand the fine detail in their mortgage statements. “The standard annual mortgage statements of some institutions are presented in a way that doesn't make it easy to check the mortgage interest,” said Minchin.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

“Some statements may only show debits and credits to the account as amalgamated figures.”

According to Minchin, customers should ask mortgage providers to provide them with a revised statement showing all the account transactions on a daily basis, so that the interest can be checked accurately.

[/FONT]