Mortgage lenders won't bring rates down

Becky Barrow and James Coney, Daily Mail Banks turned the screw on the property market yesterday, as mortgages became more expensive and increasingly harder to get hold of. The moves make a mockery of the Government's master plan to unfreeze the mortgage market. Northern Rock, the first bank to be nationalised earlier this year, pointedly ignored last week's emergency interest rate cut by the Bank of England. Despite the base rate falling to 4.5%, it has reduced its variable mortgage rate by just 0.15%, to 7.34%. If the full benefit had been passed on, payments would fall by around £50 a month on an average £150,000 loan. In reality customers will only save £15, The fear now is that the big three banks which were part-nationalised yesterday will follow its lead. Lloyds, HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland have said they will hand... [read full story]