Lilah asked her lender for a new interest rate on her buy-to-let mortgage and was unhappy not to get the same deal as a new customer.
What happened
Lilah took out a buy-to-let mortgage about 15 years ago, which she extended to include a second property. Her lender told her that because she had two properties, it would treat her borrowing as a portfolio mortgage.
When interest rates began to rise, Lilah asked her lender for a new fixed interest rate. She was unhappy to find her lender offered new customers better rates than those available to existing customers.
She looked into moving her mortgage, but several brokers told her that wasn’t possible. Lilah complained to the lender who said if she didn’t think the mortgage was right for her, she should complain to her broker.
Unhappy with that response, she brought her complaint to us.
What we said
Lilah’s main concern was that she felt that it wasn’t fair to offer better interest rates to new customers. But lenders don’t have to offer new interest rates to existing customers and her mortgage terms and conditions were clear about that.
We believed the lender acted fairly when it told Lilah which rates were available to her.
Lilah had also said she felt trapped in the deal with her lender, because brokers had advised she couldn’t move her portfolio mortgage. However, we didn’t see the advice she was given. And Lilah didn’t tell us why she couldn’t move her portfolio mortgage. We also thought it might have been possible for Lilah to remortgage each property separately.
For those reasons we didn’t uphold Lilah’s complaint.