mortgages

Variable rate mortgage lenders are failing to pass on cuts in the base rate to customers, meaning some will face "real financial difficulty" when rates climb again, research suggests.

Peter Brodnicki, chief executive of the Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB), gives his tips on making the move to fee-charging.

Coutts, the private banking arm of RBS, has changed its lending criteria for mortgage clients who will need to have £1m of investable assets before it considers applications.

Tesco is targeting further growth in its banking business, which helped the retailer record record profits of £3.8bn for the year to the end of February.

Gross lending by building societies hit a year high last month, but remains more than 40% below the figure recorded in July 2008.

Clive Norman, an independent mortgage adviser at Sovereign Financial Planning in Eastbourne, is calling for the industry to support a petition posted on the No 10 Downing Street website demanding the Government intervenes to outlaw dual-pricing.

Northern Rock has announced it will stop paying interest on some of its bonds until further notice.

Mortgage broker John Charcol says the Government is demonstrating a "complete failure" to understand the current state of the housing market after research suggested up to 3.5 million households are unable to move.

UK home repossessions fell by 10% in the second quarter of the year compared with the first three months of 2009, figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) suggest.

Investors are braced for their dividend income to fall by 13% this year as Britain's quoted companies horde cash to ride out the recession, reports the Guardian.