Hi Sparky

Apologies for replying, my laptop decided to break ! again I aint the luckiest person in the world, thankfully I know a good computer techy.

I contacted Abbey on Thursday and they basically they said that due to their lending criteria changing they arnt offering the majority of their customers, maturing on a fixed rate anything other than their account moving to their SVR - currently 4.24% (i am on 5.84%).

The gent, said, if their SVR remains the same, my monthly payments would drop from £525 to £384, if I wanted to move it onto Repayment, there would be a charge of £75 and my payments would change to £505, still at 4.24%. However, what the bloke seemed to stress a lot is that SVR's are not linked in anyway to BOE BaseRates...he seemed keen to imply that they were only dropping because of the public pressure whilst the BOE's rate was dropping.

Basically I got the impression they were really keen to start increasing their SVR asap but clearly didnt want to be the first to do it ...

Therefore I contacted my IFA and she also stressed that she had seen her work cut by 75% as their isnt the deals that there used to be going back to summer of 2007 unless you still have a fair chunk of equity left.

I have decided to remain on I/O when my deal ends on the SVR, the difference in what I would be paying to what I was paying I will continue to pay as a monthly extra payment, if I am unable to do this I will set up yet another saving account, bank it and pay in January 2011 a lump sum.

Also interestingly enough, has anyone tried the Nationwide House Price Index... I did this stating my house was valued, which is was, at £124,950 in Sept 04, (Q3) which it said it would be £118000 now, which is not bad, as in december 07 it was valued at £119,950 by the abbey. However, if I put in the valuation by the abbey for Q4 of 2007, it says that my house is now worth only approx £98000 I cant understand why there is so much difference. The original quotation means I am still around 90% LTV, the latter, means I am well into Negative equity....