Enter the comfort zone

Jobs & Money reader Robert James is keen to pay off his remaining £72,000 mortgage as early as possible. He has reduced his loan from £84,000 over the past two years through ad-hoc lump sum capital repayments while on a two-year discount deal with Market Harborough Building Society which allows him to pay off up to 10%of the capital penalty-free each year.

Recently coming to the end of the lock-in period and having reverted to the society's 5.75% rate, he started looking for a new deal giving him the ability to overpay more. "I know I should really have scoured the market, weighed up the best deal and gone for that," he says. "But with a very young family and a busy work life, I couldn't face the hassle of remortgaging with a new lender plus I'd been impressed with Market Harborough's service to date. So I approached them first for a new deal."

The society came up with an offer which, though maybe not the cheapest on the market, fulfilled Mr James' needs and was swift and simple to arrange. "It's a flexible lifetime tracker at base rate plus 0.85%, currently charging 4.85% if I apply over the internet, which importantly lets me make unlimited, penalty-free overpayments," he says. "My plan is to pay off a decent lump sum of a few thousand each year for the next couple of years and see how we go. Then I'll review things again."

The flexible deal also offers borrowers the facility to take payment holidays or draw back money previously overpaid if they wish. Mr James says: "This is an advantage because the fact that I can borrow back money I've overpaid should I need to in an emergency means that I can overpay even more because there is arguably no need to keep £2,000 or £3,000 aside in a rainy-day savings account."