Brendan asked me to start this post to describe the process as it appears that not many people are switching mortgage. I know that some people have threatened their existing bank to switch and seem happy when they get a small reduction in their mortgage rate, but I don't understand why someone wouldn't switch in order to get the lowest rate possible. It is just paperwork.
We bought a house in South Dublin in 2013 with a BoI mortgage at 4.5 percent. It increased in value quite quickly after we bought it when prices in Dublin began to rise again. When BoI lowered rates for new customers, we contacted them to see if they would offer us a reduced rate as existing customers. We told them that we were considering switching. They came back with an offer of 4.2 percent variable or 3.95 percent for a 5 year fixed. but we didn't want to fix and because our loan to value ratio had improved to around 60 percent , it looks like we could get a variable rate of 3.75 percent with KBC or 3.55 percent if we changed our current account to KBC. Getting a rate of 3.55 percent would mean a saving of around 100e a month on our mortgage repayments.
At the time KBC were the only bank we were aware of that had a switching offer - they were offering to provide 1000e towards legal costs and half price home insurance. We got a quote of just under 1100e from our solicitor for the legal work on switching and I got feedback on this site that KBC were okay to deal with and had good on-line banking, so we decided to apply to switch to KBC and change my husband's BoI current account to KBC to get the lower rate.
Because I was so annoyed with BoI's attitude, I also closed our 2 children's savings account with BoI and moved them to Rabodirect (with better interest rates). My husband also has a credit card with BoI and he is going to close down that account this week - we decided to get a Tesco credit card in lieu as they give Tesco points when you use it.
We had a bit of paperwork to do for the KBC mortgage approval - salary certificates, P60's, bank statements, credit card statements etc. That was a bit of a pain but I thought that the overall savings would be worth it for a bit of paperwork. I suppose I should mention that I have a public sector job and my husband works for a large multi-national. I think that is an advantage when applying for a mortgage.
There were 2 things that I liked about dealing with KBC on the mortgage application. The first that was we were dealing with the same person all the time. The second was that when she emailed us looking for the extra bits and pieces of information, she listed out clearly what was outstanding in each email. So she explained what was missing and then listed what she needed from us.
There was a bit of to and froing on the mortgage protection, but we were able to transfer our existing policy from BoI to KBC by signing an assignment form. We also had to get a valuation done and needed the loan to value ratio to be 60 percent or less in order to get the lowest rate possible. The guy doing the valuation checked with us what the value needed it to be and seemed to agree that our suggestion was a reasonable amount, so that worked out fine. The cost of the valuation was 127e.
We were naturally a bit wary about changing current accounts with direct debits etc. We didn't have to do any work on that, I think that KBC got a list of the standing orders and direct debits etc from BoI and switched them over. My husband had to fill out a form for his work to pay his salary into the new account. It took a few phone calls to get access to the mobile banking sorted out with KBC, but that is working fine now. All of the direct debits were transferred over with no problem, except for UPC. They rang us when their payment didn't go through and we gave them the details required.
The overall outlays were the solicitor of 1100e approx. and 127e for the valuation. KBC paid 1000e into our new current account less than a month after the first mortgage payment was made and we took up their half price home insurance offer ,saving around 200, so the overall cost was under 30e.
So the outcome is that we now pay 100e less a month on our mortgage. We are happy with KBC on-line banking, it is very easy to access and use. We used to have 6 BoI accounts (2 current, 2 credit cards, 2 children's savings) in our family, shortly we will have 2.
I'm editing this post today, because I just remembered one annoying hiccup that we had during the switching process. When our BoI mortgage was paid off, we got a letter from BoI confirming that it was paid. From memory that letter arrived at the start of the month. But 2 weeks later, when our BoI mortgage was normally due, a mortgage payment was taken out of my current account by BoI. So they took the mortgage payment even though the mortgage was paid off. When I rang them, they told me that there was a time lag between the mortgage being paid off and the direct debit being stopped. I was advised that it would take a few days for the refund to be paid back. I had to ring them twice to chase them up on it. I've just checked my bank statements and they took the payment on the 10th of the month and it didn't come back into my account until the 16th. I was really mad about that at the time, (apart from the cash flow issues).
We bought a house in South Dublin in 2013 with a BoI mortgage at 4.5 percent. It increased in value quite quickly after we bought it when prices in Dublin began to rise again. When BoI lowered rates for new customers, we contacted them to see if they would offer us a reduced rate as existing customers. We told them that we were considering switching. They came back with an offer of 4.2 percent variable or 3.95 percent for a 5 year fixed. but we didn't want to fix and because our loan to value ratio had improved to around 60 percent , it looks like we could get a variable rate of 3.75 percent with KBC or 3.55 percent if we changed our current account to KBC. Getting a rate of 3.55 percent would mean a saving of around 100e a month on our mortgage repayments.
At the time KBC were the only bank we were aware of that had a switching offer - they were offering to provide 1000e towards legal costs and half price home insurance. We got a quote of just under 1100e from our solicitor for the legal work on switching and I got feedback on this site that KBC were okay to deal with and had good on-line banking, so we decided to apply to switch to KBC and change my husband's BoI current account to KBC to get the lower rate.
Because I was so annoyed with BoI's attitude, I also closed our 2 children's savings account with BoI and moved them to Rabodirect (with better interest rates). My husband also has a credit card with BoI and he is going to close down that account this week - we decided to get a Tesco credit card in lieu as they give Tesco points when you use it.
We had a bit of paperwork to do for the KBC mortgage approval - salary certificates, P60's, bank statements, credit card statements etc. That was a bit of a pain but I thought that the overall savings would be worth it for a bit of paperwork. I suppose I should mention that I have a public sector job and my husband works for a large multi-national. I think that is an advantage when applying for a mortgage.
There were 2 things that I liked about dealing with KBC on the mortgage application. The first that was we were dealing with the same person all the time. The second was that when she emailed us looking for the extra bits and pieces of information, she listed out clearly what was outstanding in each email. So she explained what was missing and then listed what she needed from us.
There was a bit of to and froing on the mortgage protection, but we were able to transfer our existing policy from BoI to KBC by signing an assignment form. We also had to get a valuation done and needed the loan to value ratio to be 60 percent or less in order to get the lowest rate possible. The guy doing the valuation checked with us what the value needed it to be and seemed to agree that our suggestion was a reasonable amount, so that worked out fine. The cost of the valuation was 127e.
We were naturally a bit wary about changing current accounts with direct debits etc. We didn't have to do any work on that, I think that KBC got a list of the standing orders and direct debits etc from BoI and switched them over. My husband had to fill out a form for his work to pay his salary into the new account. It took a few phone calls to get access to the mobile banking sorted out with KBC, but that is working fine now. All of the direct debits were transferred over with no problem, except for UPC. They rang us when their payment didn't go through and we gave them the details required.
The overall outlays were the solicitor of 1100e approx. and 127e for the valuation. KBC paid 1000e into our new current account less than a month after the first mortgage payment was made and we took up their half price home insurance offer ,saving around 200, so the overall cost was under 30e.
So the outcome is that we now pay 100e less a month on our mortgage. We are happy with KBC on-line banking, it is very easy to access and use. We used to have 6 BoI accounts (2 current, 2 credit cards, 2 children's savings) in our family, shortly we will have 2.
I'm editing this post today, because I just remembered one annoying hiccup that we had during the switching process. When our BoI mortgage was paid off, we got a letter from BoI confirming that it was paid. From memory that letter arrived at the start of the month. But 2 weeks later, when our BoI mortgage was normally due, a mortgage payment was taken out of my current account by BoI. So they took the mortgage payment even though the mortgage was paid off. When I rang them, they told me that there was a time lag between the mortgage being paid off and the direct debit being stopped. I was advised that it would take a few days for the refund to be paid back. I had to ring them twice to chase them up on it. I've just checked my bank statements and they took the payment on the 10th of the month and it didn't come back into my account until the 16th. I was really mad about that at the time, (apart from the cash flow issues).
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