A couple of lenders including NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland have put their rates

A couple of lenders, including NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland, have put their rates up by 0.3 per cent rather than 0.25. Standard Life increased its rate by 0.31 per cent.”Only a handful of lenders took advantage of the opportunity to increase by 0.3 per cent instead of 0.25 per cent,” says Katie Tucker, mortgage specialist at John Charcol. “Lenders have kept largely the same rates as before: a clean 0.25 per cent down last time and the same 0.25 per cent up this time.”But lenders have moved their SVRs upwards to the point where most now charge more than they did last year when rates were last at 4.75 per cent. Credit, though, should go to Leeds Building Society, which increased its SVR by 0.24 per cent, less than the base-rate rise.What is happening with lenders’ standard variable rates?A handful of exceptions aside, most are going up.

Moneyfacts, the financial researcher, points out that the average SVR now stands at 6.75 per cent, or 3 per cent higher than Bank of England base rates. Some lenders charge even more: the most expensive surveyed by Savills was Birmingham Midshires, at 7.09 per cent. Only a sub-prime mortgage will cost more.The latest round of increases only serves to underscore the high cost attached to SVRs. SVR mortgages are already the most expensive way for a home owner with a decent credit history to buy a home.

“This widening of margins on the sly is definitely something borrowers should watch out for and be on their guard against.”Savills has a point. Home owners, though, might be surprised to find that their mortgages have increased, and in many cases, by more than the base rate. Those with standard variable rate mortgages have been the hardest hit.
Not only have standard variable rates risen in many cases by more than the 0.25 per cent increase in the Bank’s base rate, but in many cases banks and building societies are now charging rather more for money than they were last time base rates were at 4.75 per cent, in 2005.”Out of the 41 lenders we have surveyed, more than half have a higher standard variable rate [SVR] mortgage than they did last time the base rate was 4.75 per cent,” says Melanie Bien, associate director of mortgage brokers Savills Private Finance. The Bank of England’s decision to increase its base interest rate to 4.75 per cent last month shocked few in the financial markets: the move was widely anticipated. Ian, for instance, is a proper teenage boy: quick to judge; unintentionally unkind to his besotted girlfriend; often inarticulate; obsessed with fishing. And Lawson’s prose is quiet, lucid and as expansive as the lake on which Ian whiles away his spare time with his best friend Pete, a native boy, catching “one fish to every four or five caught by Pete.. It was a fact of life and he had accepted it long ago”.. As his involvement with the Dunns deepens and the domestic drama unfolds, the author keeps the broader picture in focus.

Absorbed into her tale of betrayal, loss and love are the Depression, the devastating effects of the Second World War, and the troubled relationship between the local Wasps and the native Ojibway.The characterisation is precise. Gently amusing, these attune the reader to a place and time where nothing, and everything, happens.The years pass and stoic Arthur fields more (metaphorical) knives, thrown at him by the hardships of farm life, historical events and his attractive, errant brother.Ian, told by his parents to get a Saturday job to save money for college, asks for work on Arthur’s farm, hoping to be close to Laura. The story flips back and forth between the 1930s and 1950s in this way throughout the book. Each chapter is epigraphed by real-life headlines from a local rag: “District Man Collects $80 on Dead Bears”; “Expert Warns Silage is Tricky”. Jake has nagged his brother into playing a knife-throwing game, during which his knife ends up in Arthur’s foot.Next, it’s forward to 1957, where a 15-year-old Ian adores – from afar – Arthur’s beautiful wife Laura.