I went into a branch to talk with mortgage adviser in Jan 2009 because I was afraid I would not get my tracker back at the end of our fixed rate - as they seemed to be removing tracker mortgages from the market. When fixing I had got verbal agreement that I could go back onto tracker but had not gotten it in writing so I thought I had no case (was unaware of contract detailing return to tracker). It was mentioned to me about moving to SVR at no cost.
I was told that there was no penalties and that existing SVR customers ONLY would get an ECB rate reduction of .5% passed onto them on Feb 13th 09. Any SVR customers after that date would not get this ECB rate reduction. I was due to break out in Aug 09 so I thought, why wait until then to break out and get an SVR rate that is .5% higher! So I had a certain amount of time to get the fax in to ensure I got the ECB rate reduction in Feb (can't remember how long).
I took a couple of days to think about it and then rang their mortgage phoneline (what adviser had told me to do if I wanted to break).
So I broke out in Jan 09, approx 6 months early, from a fixed rate of 4.85% to move to a SVR of 4.65% - which I was told would be an SVR of 4.15% in Feb.