Woolwich Mortgage Company

Woolwich Mortgages was one of the prominent financial companies with approximately 402 branches all over the United Kingdom and an employee strength of 6500. The number of clients of Woolwich Mortgages was around 500,000. In the year 2000, Woolwich was bought by its main rival - Barclays.

The deal between Barclays and Woolwich was settled at US$ 8.1 billion. It was decided that Woolwich Mortgages would be promoted as the mortgage division of Barclays. The merger between Woolwich Mortgages and Barclays has enhanced their combined online services and strengthened their e-commerce division. The deal has also affected extra revenues as well as resulted in substantial cost savings.

Woolwich Mortgages was renowned for its large number of products and providing expert advice to the mortgagors on the choice of the proper mortgage scheme to serve the purpose of the mortgagor. The company was engaged in offering different mortgage schemes to the first time mortgagors. The categories of significant mortgage schemes offered by Woolwich Mortgages to its clients include:

• First-time buyer mortgage
• Tracker Mortgage
• Loans over £500,000
• Offset mortgage

Woolwich Mortgages laid great emphasis on the fixed rate mortgage schemes. The list of varied fixed rate mortgage schemes offered by the company includes:

• 2-year fixed rate mortgage
• 10-year fixed rate mortgage
• 1-year fixed rate mortgage
• 5-year fixed rate mortgage

The fixed rate mortgages of Woolwich Mortgages offer the facility to the mortgagors to have a clear idea of the interest rate and the regular payments towards the capital amount in advance. The facility of mortgage reserve of Woolwich Mortgages brings a series of advantages with it, like the advantage of early payment as well as under payment, payment holiday and the advantage of taking up extra loan at standard variable rate too.

Woolwich Mortgages possessed the required expertise to help those clients who wanted to re-mortgage their property to gain more funds to fulfill their immediate needs. Woolwich Mortgages mainly offered three types of re-mortgaging schemes:

• 10 year fixed
• Mortgage reserve
• Lifetime tracker

The life time tracker re-mortgaging scheme of Woolwich Mortgages was the most advantageous scheme as the company generally charged no fees for the required legal procedures in the processing of the re-mortgaged loan and in case Woolwich Mortgages accepted the fees for the legal services provided by the company, guaranteed substantial cash back. The lifetime tracker re-mortgage scheme exempts the lifetime tracker re-mortgage holders from the payment of any application fees. This scheme allowed the facility to secure a loan amount of approximately 60% of the price of the residential property of the mortgagor.

Woolwich Mortgages charged £ 995 for the10-year fixed rate re-mortgage scheme. The 10-year fixed rate re-mortgage scheme of Woolwich Mortgages has the facility for the repayment of the capital amount of the loan before the completion of the tenure of the loan. But in such a situation, Woolwich Mortgages billed the mortgagor approximately 6% of the total capital, in case the mortgagor cleared off the complete burden of the loan in full before the end of the loan tenure. The percentage of charge remained the same in case the mortgagor indulged in partial payment of the capital and in case the mortgagor exchanged the 10-year fixed re-mortgage scheme with some other re-mortgage schemes offered by the company. In case of the 10 year fixed re-mortgage scheme, the mortgagor was allowed to borrow approximately 80% of the price of the mortgaged property.

Last Updated on 5/26/2011