MIAS, the Mortgage and Insurance Advisory Services (http://www.mias-ltd.co.uk ), is concerned that, despite the recent publicity and various campaigns in the press, borrowers are still being stung by punitive exit fees.
Lenders charge exit fees when customers redeem their mortgage in full, for example, by switching their mortgage to a rival lender. Exit fees can also be termed administration charges, sealing fees or deeds-release fees and are raised to cover the cost of taking property deeds out of storage, sending them to a solicitor and producing a final account statement. Borrowers are warned when they sign up that if they switch lenders, they’ll have to pay a fee – but the size of that fee is not guaranteed to stay the same.
Within the last few years, lenders have increased their exit penalties steeply, with some now topping the