Hostile Halifax needs reality check

Times really must be getting tough for mortgage lenders. The Halifax, traditionally a stoical and unbendingly unemotional institution, is resorting to undignified mud-slinging to get its message across.

It responded to rival Nationwide's rate cut last week with a stinging attack on the building society's move, puffing up one of its own products as far superior. Halifax's mortgages have become more competitive of late, but its customers owe much of this to competition over the last two years from Nationwide.

Halifax points out in its attack that it is contacting customers to offer them better deals, but this requires borrowers on the standard variable rate - 7.74 per cent, against Nationwide's new rate of 7.09 per cent - to make a switch to get a better deal. At Nationwide, everyone paying a standard rate receives a reasonable deal. Borrowers who are disinclined to shop around at the end of a special deal will pay that rate.

Halifax doth protest a little too much.

The Government's proposed new system for speeding up the house buying process could have far-reaching implications for the way we look after our properties.

The new system will require that sellers have their properties surveyed before they are put on the market. If the surveys are to be worthwhile they should identify any defects that could, under today's chaotic system, scupper a sale.

In the pilot scheme conducted to test the Government's reforms, surveyors and estate agents criticised the reports for lack of detail. Assuming that the surveys are beefed up, it will be more difficult to offload a property that has faults.

The new system should, therefore, put homeowners under pressure to maintain their properties to avoid nasty surprises when the time comes to sell.

As most of us know, property maintenance is expensive and often not budgeted for in the euphoria that goes with the purchase of a property. Even if you have the money, finding reliable experts to put problems right is a hit and miss business.

The Government plans a pilot scheme for accrediting builders, and the new house-buying system should focus ministerial minds on homeowners' need to obtain easy access to reliable builders at fair prices.