I think you'll also find that any lender also has the legal right to demand instant repayment of any mortgage loan should the value of the property fall below the amount outstanding, at which point the sale (or auction!) or the house is the primary source of money owed
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy from Bath who is your mortgage with?!?! No lender has the right to force you to sell you house as long as you are keeping up your repayments.

Mark, Birmingham, West Mids

"If house prices fall, less people will be able to sell-up (negative equity). The subsequent shortage of stock will increase prices again.

Robinson, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire"

***

Wake up Robinson, it's time for your cornflakes! People might not 'want' to sell their house if they're in negative equity, but what if they lose their job, get sick, or for any other reason can't afford to carry on paying their mortgage? I think you'll also find that any lender also has the legal right to demand instant repayment of any mortgage loan should the value of the property fall below the amount outstanding, at which point the sale (or auction!) or the house is the primary source of money owed ... then they chase you for the rest! Read the small print on your mortgage contract! While I'm sure we'd all hope this wouldn't happen, with many banks in financial turmoil at the moment, I wouldn't be surprised if this were to happen on a more regular basis over the next few years!

Andy, Bath,

Well it had to come. The Halifax have ignored Gordon Brown The authority of Alistaire Darling is Zero as is that of Gordon Brown.. They can't even manage Labour Party finances.
I don't think New Labour will survive their term. I think they Learned Economics from Mugabe giving 2.5% Inflation, probably the biggest lie yet.
Local Elections will put Gordon Brown on the slide to oblivion.

V Cooper, Yeovil, United Kingdom

Call their bluff. Unless the banks reduce their mortgage rates the Bank of England should increase the base rate again. Cutting it is not benifiting the public (as it is not passed on). What moral obligation has government to help bank shareholders? They are the only ones who gain. The public just gets weak stirling and high inflation.

E Skelton, cardiff, wales

I was going to say something intelligent, but
I'm still, " filling up that bucket ", as they say.

You get the feeling that this has gone beyond the
control of the politician, so what good would a
change of personnel make ?

We've lived of this big wheel for along time now
and no-one now has the clought to make it move
in the opporsite direction.

I take it, this trend is unprecedented.

M walker, Nr Bromsgrove, worcs

"Excellent news....

House prices are toast. "

A typical comment from a more than likely unemployed bitter individual not currently able to purchase propertyrices again.


Robinson, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire

Well this is nonsense! How old are you? In the last crash (and there will be one again either now or if they do manage to prevent it by inflating the asset bubble even more in a couple of years time), prices fell 21% on average across the UK and it took 7 years to recover. Ths time? longer. Perhaps the blogger has plenty of money for a deposit and to sit this thing out? It doesn't seem like you do?

Austin Tassletine , south west , UK

Where are the FSA in al of this. Banks are governed by the principle of treating customers fairly.

Some of the high cost of deals is legitimate, but a fair component is profiteering.

AP, bristol,

It amuses me when 'home owners' (read - holders of enormous mortgages) talk of 'capital gains'. These are completely notional gains based on supposed valuations.

Welcome to the bursting of the bubble.

MK, Peterborough,

And the computer says "NO"

Steve , Liverpool, England

Its an interesting one

My economics teachers tought me that the the two biggest nightmares a bank faces are a) when lending money will they recover it fully and b) once fully recovered will they be able to re lend it out again.

Putting up rates will only deter people from borrowing and they will eventually have to bring them back down again.

Michael, Panama City, Panama

Surprise, surprise! The Halifax is ignoring the poor Darling!

You sack wimps, you don't obey them.

Noel Falconer, Couiza, France

Weird. 6 months ago everyone was moaning, saying lending had got out of hand, rates were too cheap, house prices too expensive to buy and lenders had to lend more sensibly.

Now all those things seem to be happening, people are...er...moaning still!!

Chris, Northampton, England

Who is lending to who at 5 percent?

I'm not ... I get 6.7% on my savings from Nationwide.
The banks aren't ... Libor is 6%
Halifax isn't ... they just raised their rate to 6.6%

BoE monetary policy is toast! ... The hand is on the tiller but the rudder ain't connected.

Pedro, Stratford,

Good stuff

Hopefully my savings rates will increase by a similar amount. Anyway, I don't know what the govenment are worrying about, the property progs on C4 say prices can only go up, and the govenment certainly didn't prevent the silly increases of the past 10 years, so why try and prevent it ....

... oh that's it, the whole economy is built on debt!!

Paul, Camberley,

why ? is anyone actually listening to Brown these days, we have all seen these events unfolding Brown dipping his hands into pension funds, selling our gold shares, hands once again into premium bonds, then our reserves for Northern Rock, and at the same time gradually increasing tax at every opportunity.

The Bank of England is supposed to be independent but Brown is once again showing his hands!!!

Lets face it the country has little to export our markets have not been protected, we own sweet nothing, we import and buy from every country, and we send our last £1 or is to £12 billion to Brussels to be squandered.

God save England

christine marshall, cambridge, england

Strange how other governments offer tax cuts but the British Government does not want to put its hands into its own coffers to help us, rather try and spend bank cash to do it.

Ian, Bristol,

STOP PANICKING!!!! Low house prices are good whether you own a house or not. Don't buy into the govt and banks propaganda.

Neil, Birmingham, U.K

Get real! These are moneylenders in a free market. They will screw their customers to the wall at every opportunity. Just doing their job. If you don't like it, don't deal with them.

jim, Manchester, UK

"Excellent news....

House prices are toast. "

A typical comment from a more than likely unemployed bitter individual not currently able to purchase property. Please note that the vast majority of mortgage holders and property owners are not in the market for the capital gain (although that is nice), they simply want somewhere to live. The system will balance itself in the medium term. If house prices fall, less people will be able to sell-up (negative equity). The subsequent shortage of stock will increase prices again.

Robinson, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire

I am very glad I re-paid my mortgage and sold my business on time. Now its time to sell all assets when the time is wright and move on to warmer climates. In doing that I will avoid inheritance tax and let Mr Brown sort this financial mess, solve the refugee and immigrant crises with his cronies.

Good luck to you all. You will need it.

CHRIS , Birmingham, uk

Looks like the Boss of HBOS didn't like his breakfast Mr Brown.Maybe he would have liked his eggs dippy?

stephen hulton, eure, france

I agree with Nick. Read his comments on this forum. Brown and Darling (or Del Boy and Rodney Trotter) couldn't run a toy factory. They treat the [once] Great British Economy as a giant toy factory to massage their glorified egos.

Rahul, London,

I think brown's degree is on the history of the labour party

Davie P, London,

Get A Little eXtra Help .........Hmmmmmmmm

Bob Fanton, Salisbury, UK

If the BOE had not cut rates by 0.25% last week,would the HBOS be raising rates by 0.75%?I doubt it,hence last weeks rate cut was a complete waste of time.If they had put them up by 1%,would HBOS now be raising them by 1.75%,I doubt it but petrol would be cheaper.

stephen hulton, eure, france

Very good!

Richard, Maidenhead,

With the recent cut in the base rate, Halifax will no doubt be cutting its savings rates too - a win-win for the bank.

Paul, Coventry,

Every cloud has a silver lining; there are some very juicy fixed interest rate bonds for savers around that will especially help pensioners who need to optimise returns from their life savings. Having all your eggs in the property basket is proving to be unwise to say the least in the current climate.

john, milton keynes,

it is getting funnier and funnier!

riccardo, brussels,

Am I one of the only people here who think this is sensible?

We have the biggest asset bubble ever. We have £1.4 trillion pounds of consumer debt and £600billion government debt. We have inflation of anything between 4.5% and 10% depending on where the figures are emasculated from.

The banks should look to recouping their income from the investments they make. The population knew very well that mortgage rates could go up (and indeed well above base rate). I simply do not see the problem or anything wrong. This is the capitalist system!

Austin Tassletine , south west , UK

How could this happen dumb (brown) and dumber (darling) -are on our side !!!

Martin, london,

HAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Excellent news....

House prices are toast.

Mr Realist, London, London

Tue 8am Working breakfast with PM concerning rate cuts.
Wed 8am Raise mortgage rate by 0.5 per cent.
Thur 8 am Press release about hard times ahead, etc, etc.
Fri 8 am Select staff for redundancy and estimate next bonus.
Sat 8 am Chose new car and plan holiday to the Bahamas.

Bank Management: it's a tough job but someone has to do it.

Kevin Herbert, Greater Manchester, UK

Its so obvious that no-one has any idea which way to go. The BoE mandate was to maintain inflation between 2% and 3% and it was given just one tool to achieve this, interest rates. For the most part economists love to over complicate situations but Gordon Brown's adherance to this simplistic strategy shows he has no perception of the 'real economy'. He's responsible for selling off the majority of Britain's gold reserves at the lowest price ever seen. So there's nothing left to back our curency. He's manipulated the measure of inflation to a point where, for years it's borne absolutely no resemblance to the real cost of living and that has resulted in interest rates being held at artificially low levels encouraging excessive borrowing. Now, these two less than esteemed politicians, Brown and Darling, both with eceonomics degrees pussyfoot around like a couple of half-baked amateurs. I say we need someone who can lead us out of this, not these two fairies. Time to revolt.

NICK, London, UK