I've had a Barclays Open Plan Mortgage for over a year now, and in my opinion its the best thing since sliced bread.
An overview for those who don't know about it. The Open Plan mortgage enables you to off set the balance of any other Barclays account you have (current or savings) against ... Read review
Advantages: Great Value, Flexible and Interest Rate Limited Disadvantages: They need to supply one number to call
I've had a Barclays Open Plan Mortgage for over a year now, and in my opinion its the best thing since sliced bread.
An overview for those who don't know about it. The Open Plan mortgage enables you to off set the balance of any other Barclays account you have (current or savings) against the total of you mortgage. This means that if you have 2,000 in a savings account, you don't pay the interest on 2,000 of your mortgage. A simple ... ...have your current account with Barclays for this mortgage to work (Transfering of accounts I cannot comment on, as I already had a Barclays account). I rang the local office to make an appointment when I was looking, only had to wait until the following day to talk to them. They were able to give me a guarenteed amount of borrow (with proof so that I could easily take it to an estate agent) and all the application forms were take care of. There was ... more
I've had a Barclays Open Plan Mortgage for over a year now, and in my opinion its the best thing since sliced bread.
An overview for those who don't know about it. The Open Plan mortgage enables you to off set the balance of any other Barclays account you have (current or savings) against the total of you mortgage. This means that if you have 2,000 in a savings account, you don't pay the interest on 2,000 of your mortgage. A simple concept that can save a large amount of money, if you are not familiar with the mortgage then I would strongly encourage people to have a look at their web site.
Getting going:
You have to have your current account with Barclays for this mortgage to work (Transfering of accounts I cannot comment on, as I already had a Barclays account). I rang the local office to make an appointment when I was looking, only had to wait until the following day to talk to them. They were able to give me a guarenteed amount of borrow (with proof so that I could easily take it to an estate agent) and all the application forms were take care of. There was no hard sell, they are confident enough with this product that they don't need to.
Buying the house:
There was no problem when it actually came to transfer the money for the sale, as I'd expect. I did however arrange my own buildings and contents insurance as Barclays were quite expensive, however, their survey deal was a good one.
Once its running:
I have had no major problem with the running of the mortgage. They have recently changed the mortgage statements from monthly to quarterly, not a problem however.
Tracking the mortgage:
The statements allow you to see exactly how much you have offset against your mortgage each month and what saving this has given you, so you know exactly how much you owe.
The Interest Rate:
The interest rate when I got my mortgage was guarenteed not to got more that 0.75 above base rate - making it one of the best deals for such a guarentee. I've been got before when what starts out to be a good rate has no guarentee to remain the same amount above base rate, even on a variable (no discount) mortgage. I believe that they are only doing 0.95% above base rate for new customers.
The Reserve Account:
When you get the mortgage they automatically give you a "reserve account" which is for the remainder of the money that they said they would be willing to lend you. My advice is not to touch this as it is charged at the bands standard lending rate! Instead borrow more than you need (say £10,000) and put it in a seperate savings account offset against your mortgage. This should give you some emergency money should you need it.
Contacting Barclays:
Before I had the Open Plan mortgage I just had to ring my branch. Now it is slightly harder, I wanted to change some details on our statement and had to ring 4 different numbers (each recommended by the previous) before I got to the right one. A real pain!
How does offset save money:
The concept is that the interest rate is always higher if you borrow money (i.e. a loan, mortgage) than if you save money (current, deposit account). So rather than have £10,000 in a savings account earning 3% and paying 5% on your mortgage you cancel each out, not earning 3%, but also, not paying 5%. (saving 2% of £10,000 - £200 saving) - Barclays web site describes it much better :-)
Savings:
If you have money sitting about (even for half a month waiting for a bill such as a credit Card or council tax) then I'd recommend you at least look at the Barclays Open Plan Mortgage. If really has saved me serious amounts of money.
On-Line Access:
The Barclays online site is pretty good. You can see the balance of all your accounts, transfer money about , pay other accounts/people (You can even see your mortgage account). Its missing one vital thing in my opinion. The ability to E-mail Barclay or your branch.
Advantages: Can get pre approved over the phone if a customer Disadvantages: not very good offers
...to have my mortgage with Barclays was you can ring them and get your mortgaged pre approved there and then if you are a banker with them, and as I needed to know if I could have on straight away I had no choice. They told me they would not need to get any payslips of me as they can see from my account that I have a regular wage going in.
I was pre approved for £44000 I was always under the impression you were only allowed 3.5 your wage, they lend ... ...fees. The service with Barclays is excellent but they do not do a wide range of offers and they do not offer any cash back. They have now joined up with the Woolwich so there are a few offers but you are better off shopping around first.
To sum it up if you only want good service and are not bothered about your rates go to Barclays ...
draper 25.08.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Barclays Bank Mortgages
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Advantages: If you have Sky Digital you can even see your account on TV. Disadvantages: None worth mentioning.
Well I wrote an opinion about the online banking section for the Barclays, now the turn of the Mortgage section.
Well I hace my mortgage with the Barclays (purely by choice)!
First of all if you have looked at the interest rates offered by the BarclaysBank then your right, they are no where near the best, BUT, the customer sefvice is brilliant and everthing is made as clear as possible to you when you are signing up for the mortgage.
If you are looking for the specifically for the best rate of interest that you can get then you should use a mortgage broker and not go directly to a bank, but if you are interested in helpful staff and good sound advice then Barclays come first!
I worked for the Woolwich Bank a while back beforey they merged with the Barclays and I would strongly recommend their Open plan Mortgage Account ...
tommartin 23.01.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Barclays Bank
I can't stand this bank, I have had nothing but trouble. They have abused my trust by sending my endless streams of junk mail to my billing address, credit card offers, loans, mortgages, rubbish. My nearest Barclaysbank have "Training Issues" which means I can't even transfer my money out of their hands and into my far more reliable Smile account. I tried to use the Barclays phone banking system and have been on hold for 1.5 hours before giving up, it seems that I can only ever get through to the phone banking people on a Sunday morning. I held great hopes for the internet bank service they were offering, but it uses PC based certificates thus you can't connect from anywhere else on the net, also they arn't even BSI backed!!! Useless. I will be sticking with Smile.. If only I could get a trained member of BarclaysBank to close my ...
kitt 13.11.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Barclays Bank
Advantages: options for young people, full range of services Disadvantages: non agreed lending means another £20 a day
BarclaysBank is one of largest British banks and offers a full range of financial services including loans, credit cards, mortgages, insurance and pensions.
The standard BarclaysBank account (for over 18's) offers a bank card and access to an agreed overdraft limit without any monthly fee, however there is sill interest to pay. The interest rate is lower than an unarranged overdraft as an agreed overdraft attracts a rate of 15.6%APR, but non-agreed lending costs a ridiculous £20 per day!
Unlike most other banks, cheques up to £1,000 are available immediately for use with no inconvenience of a 3 day wait.
Other Barclaysbanking service costs are: banker's drafts: £10, stopped cheques: £10, additional statements: £0.50, all quite reasonable really. and euro to sterling currency exchange is free!
And like many banks, Barclaysbanking ...
CLDbizz 17.11.2008 (18.11.2008)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Barclays Bank
