How does Abbey's sting-in-the-tail compare with the rest?

Q Abbey has just sent me a letter telling me they are increasing their mortgage repayment fee to be charged when we close our mortgage. It's news to me that such a charge is levied anyway, but the new fee will be ?225 to cover administration fees for "looking after our mortgage and closing it down".

Is this normal practice and how does their sting-in-the-tail fee compare to other mortgage lenders? I cannot pretend that Abbey is my favourite bank anyway, but there seems no point switching to another provider as the mortgage will be paid off in six years and is too small anyway.

J W-R

A Yes it is normal practice for lenders to charge a mortgage repayment fee - aka mortgage redemption fee, discharge fee, deeds fee, exit fee or sealing fee - which, as Abbey explained, is basically a fee that you'll have to pay when you repay your mortgage or switch it to a new lender.

And according to recent research from Moneyfacts Abbey is not alone in upping its fee. In the last year, 53 lenders have increased this fee with 23 of them more than doubling it. For the lenders who have put up their fee, ?225 seems to be the norm - although Alliance & Leicester now charges ?295.

And you could have a point about not switching - although if Abbey had been one of the 42 lenders which the Moneyfacts research found have an exit fee of less than ?100 - or better still, one of the 16 that make no charge - I might have urged you to overcome your inertia.