OpinionMay 22 2013

Treating customers fairly with interest-only

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When I arranged a fixed-rate, tracker, discounted or capped mortgage for, say, three years I would always go back to them with a view to changing them to repayment. The three years on interest-only allowed them to purchase furniture and other items for the house, something they may have found difficult if it was a repayment mortgage.

Normally a young couple would have benefited from salary increases, which would make the repayment mortgage affordable, especially as they would not have to find money they needed three years ago. In some cases, if they had major salary rises I would look to reduce the term to 20 years or less, assuming they agreed it was affordable. What is wrong with that scenario Mr O’Donnell?

I would attend any court in the land to defend my position that what I did was right for those clients and their circumstances at the time. And I never sold PPI or endowments and our mission statement in June 2000 stated we would always treat clients fairly, so we thought of it before the birth of the FSA and told it so when it came to inspect our records.

Brian Rossiter

Managing partner

Armchair Mortgages

Cannock, Staffordshire