Thursday 14 May 2009

My trip down memory lane

I can still vividly remember walking in to my local Halifax branch in December 2007, asking how much was left on the mortgage, rounding it up to the next whole £100 and handing over a cheque there and then. A week or two later, the Halifax sent me some bits of paper in a nice plastic binder and a refund of the overpayment of about £50 and that was the end of that.

I do feel a bit sorry for those who can't remember such simple - but important - events in life. Perhaps readers would like to share their experiences - can you remember paying off a mortgage? Are some people still needlessly paying hundreds of pounds a month to the bank or building society?

13 comments:

Stan said...

Still got 10 years or so to go on mine - however as I have a tracker mortgage, but haven't lowered my payments I should hopefully pay it off a bit sooner.

knirirr said...

There's still quite a bit to pay off on mine, although I have paid off several other loans including a student loan. I found a letter in this evening's post saying that my motorcycle is now fully paid off.

Mark Wadsworth said...

S, keep up the good work, interest rates can only rise from here on in.

K, I can even remember getting a nice letter from the Student Loans Company and from the furniture shop who sold me my sofas on three years interest free credit, when those loans were paid off, as it happens.

Anonymous said...

Sold my flat in London about five years before the peak. Damn, damn damn.

Nevertheless made a tidy profit despite a nasty patch a while after the ERM when I owed about £20,000 in negative equity.

You don't forget stuff like that!

Unless you are an MP of course. Maybe we should send in the 'elf 'n safety, there must be something in the pipes there.

Lola said...

You either rent a house or rent the money to buy the house. Once you've paid off your mortgage you suffer the 'loss' on the interest you would have earned on the money locked up in the house, less the cost of renting it. Owning a house outright is good as it lets you live on very little, plus it means you've escaped for the debt, job, tax merry go round. Neither employers nor the bloody government can make you do anything.

I have about 2 to 3 years to go before we finish ours, but we do have sufficient savings to pay it off now. The reason we haven't yet done that is that we have too many female children, some of which are in further education and are not yet launched. For that you always need more ready cash that you think you do.

But, oh, roll on the day when we are mortgage free.

Henry North London 2.0 said...

You always remember the day you became mortgage free.. Its such an event because you become totally free of debt.

You become absolutely free.

Now they are in debt because they took stuff that wasnt rightfully theirs

dearieme said...

Lola to launch lassies into life. Read all about it.

knirirr said...

I can even remember getting a nice letter from the Student Loans Company and from the furniture shop who sold me my sofas on three years interest free creditThose sorts of letters are very satisfying indeed.
The motorcycle was on interest-free credit as well. I have thought that one thing that might persuade people to buy new cars is to offer that, but I've only seen one example (from Citroen) and it was over two years, which would still make it too expensive to pay off.

Royston said...

Of course, many people in 15 or 25 years or so won't be able to say the same - many mortgages given out over the boom years were interest only!

Anonymous said...

Is Mr Zaman, Shahid Malik's discount landlord paying tax? There's a suggestion that there is no written contract.
Shahid Malik (or translated Martyr the Great)our justice minister is 1,000,000% certain he's justified in claiming court fines as wholly necessarily in fulfilling his duties!

This innumerate, turd will be pleased to know that because of him, Ahmed and Uddin the BNP will get 100% of my vote on June4th.

Anonymous said...

I well remember paying off my mortgage a few years ago. The warm glow lasted for weeks. Then we had children, traded up and got another mortgage... oh, well. It was nice while it lasted.

Simon Fawthrop said...

The feeling, sitting in your house, looking round and thinking "no matter what happens nobody can take this of me" cannot replaced and will never be forgotten.

The other feeling that is never forgotten is looking at your first bank statement after you've paid off the mortgage just to check it has gone. Except of your an MP and have so much money coming in that you don't notice the mortgage as an outgoung!

SteveShark said...

Paid ours off last autumn after selling my deceased father's house (privately without any estate agents involved, which was so sweet) - also cashed in the endowment too thinking that a poor return was going to get poorer.
We celebrated with two bottles of Veuve Clicquot and then ordered in pizzas as we were too hammered to cook.