Moneyblog

You’ve traded in your beat-up turkey of a car. You’ve forked out on insurance, finance, the MOT, and what you think are tasteful new rims. Next thing you know, you’re being summoned to court. The tricked-out wheels were a step too far. The car-maker is suing you for messing with their product. The fluffy dice in the rear view are also a problem. If you lose in court, it’s goodbye to your gleaming saloon – dice and all. ‘Get off it mate. It’s your car. You paid for it. We don’t live in some preposterous ownership dystopia,’ I hear you say. After all, if this were true, there would be

This week’s Best Buys, provided by Moneyfacts, are two-year fixed rate buy-to-let mortgages.

With the winter chill showing no sign of letting up any time soon, it’s even more depressing that some of the big energy suppliers are hiking their prices yet again. Scottish Power customers will see their gas and electricity costs rise 7.8 per cent on average from the end of March, adding £86 on to bills. EDF Energy and Npower have announced similar rises. The good news, however, is that it’s perfectly possible to slash your own bill. Of course, the best way to reduce the cost of energy is simply to use less of it by becoming more energy efficient – for example, by making sure your home is

With stories proclaiming ‘Crisis in the NHS’ an almost permanent rash in our media, the prospect of charging patients for GP and accident and emergency services will soon become a reality. An increasingly elderly population riddled with multiple long-term conditions combined with the hangover of continued austerity means that the numbers no longer stack up for an NHS free at the point of care. Family doctors are said to be drawing up plans to start charging patients for evening and weekend consultations, warning ministers that they cannot fund seven-day provision within their current resources. The Times reports that GPs are planning to sidestep restrictions on charges by allowing for payments

Young people, their faces pressed against an estate agent’s window, gaze at all the lovely homes they’ll never, ever be able to buy. That’s the image the communities minister Sajid Javid conjured up while unveiling the government’s long-awaited housing white paper week. This snapshot of young housebuyers’ despair was meant to symbolise a broken housing market where, on average, house prices are nearly eight times average salaries. ‘If we don’t act now,’ the communities minister said, ‘a whole generation could be left behind’. So what did the government propose in its white paper for England, initially intended for publication late last year and then in January 2017? More importantly, will this housing finance reform

You know the feeling. Your head is turned by a good-looking broadband and phone deal but, after a while, things change. You belatedly discover the superficially attractive package included some unappealing habits, like the tendency to ‘review pricing from time to time’. And so the honeymoon would seem to be over for Sky Talk customers lured to switch from other providers by once keener call rates. Some existing Sky Talk customers – Sky won’t say how many – have been told their bills are going up by inflation-busting proportions from April. Line rental and calls to UK landlines are both rising by around 9 per cent from £17.40 to £18.99

If you’re thinking about taking out a mortgage, check out this week’s best buys on two-year fixed rate loans.

Eight weeks today the Lifetime ISA will launch to help people save towards buying their first home or retirement. In reward for their efforts, some savers could receive a government bonus of up to £32,000. But seeing as more than two thirds of people don’t even know what a Lifetime ISA is (according to pension specialist Aegon), here’s a guide to the new account. What is it? The Lifetime ISA – or LISA – is a tax-efficient savings account for people aged 18 to 40 wanting to buy their first home (up to the value of £450,000) or build a retirement nest egg. How does it work? Savers and investors can

Fibs, white lies, alternative facts. We all bend the truth from time-to-time, although for most of us that doesn’t include spouting nonsense from the podium of the White House press briefing room. When it comes to finance, we’re not exactly a nation of truth-tellers. I can relay multiple stories of people who have concealed chronic conditions from travel insurers, long-term illnesses from company health plans and home repairs from household insurance firms. While keeping quiet may not always be a bad thing (I’m thinking of the time I neglected to tell my sister that her one-year-old daughter ate cat litter while under my care), failing to inform a financial services provider of

Tools to help with ‘personal improvement’ were the big consumer trend of 2016. Whether it was healthy recipe boxes to overhaul your diet, a Fitbit to force you to exercise or apps to teach you another language on your commute, they were hard to avoid. Industries of all kinds predicted a future where goods and services are not only designed to fit our unique desires, but to help us shape them. In 2017 it looks like that trend is coming to banking, and it’s potentially great news for our mental health as well as our wallets. Financial technology is beginning to disrupt retail banking. Challenger banks based around an app –

If you’re thinking about investing your money in cash, but want a tax-efficient way to do that, check out this week’s best buy three-year and over fixed rate cash ISAs.

This week is one of the gloomiest of the year for people who work for themselves because they’ve had to settle up with the taxman. And it’s not just this week they feel the pain of self-employment, or just them who shoulder the burden. The financial impact of the way they work is taking its toll on their families all year round, according to research out today from Scottish Widows’ think tank. It found that one in five people with a self-employed relative say their family member has more financial worries since becoming their own boss, while just as many say they are more stressed as a result of their

A well-heeled colleague once admired the Max Mara jacket I wore to work. Was it, she asked, from the latest collection? ‘No,’ I said. ‘Oxfam.’ She blurted out that she donated her casts-off to Oxfam. ‘Next time, cut out the middleman and give them to me,’ I replied. Charity shops help me to afford the quality clothes I lust after, especially Italian jackets. Once, in a gluttonous afternoon orgy, I ‘did’ 11 shops in the Stockbridge district of Edinburgh. I’d have done 12, but one was closed. They included a British Red Cross store dedicated to wedding attire – well, at least the brides’ dresses have only been used once,

In Oscar-nominated movie Manchester by the Sea, Casey Affleck’s character Lee Chandler is shocked to discover he’s been named in his brother’s will as the guardian of his orphaned 16-year-old nephew Patrick. The boy’s dead father didn’t discuss it beforehand, and Lee has no interest in taking on the mantle of replacement parent. This position is all the clearer for Affleck’s character when the lawyer explains that while the boy’s expenses will be covered from his brother’s estate, Lee will be required to uproot his life and relocate to discharge his guardianship duties, thus setting up the movie’s driving tension and ratcheting up Patrick’s pain. Imagining the children we love

For many pensioners, the thought of applying for a mortgage seems out of the question. However, lenders have had to move with the times and so being able to obtain a mortgage as a pensioner is no longer looked upon as ‘mission impossible’. There are some excellent opportunities out there with major banks and building societies now offering mortgage deals with a high maximum age limit (for when the mortgage must be repaid). Here are some tips for taking out a mortgage once you reach retirement age. Find the right lender for your individual circumstances There is no general maximum age limit for securing a mortgage, it’s up to the individual loan

Within the space of a week, it has been announced that another 189 high street banks and building societies will be shutting their doors through the course of 2017. Last week, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank outlined plans to close 79 branches. On Tuesday, HSBC reported it will close another 62 branches on top of the 55 previously announced. And yesterday, Yorkshire Building Society admitted it will be closing 48 branches, including all 28 Norwich & Peterborough branches as it goes ahead with killing off the brand completely. Existing N&P current account holders have been told to find alternative accounts. The companies have largely attributed the closures to customers increasingly turning

The jig may finally be up for Britain’s non-doms. After years of having it all this beleaguered elite are in the cross hairs. And now they’re going to pay. From the 6 April 2017, non-doms who have lived in Britain for at least 15 out of the past 20 years – the 15/20 Rule – will lose their privileged status. Under the new rules they will be taxed like the rest of us. Previously, for the fortunate few the UK was something of a tax haven. Non-doms could move to Britain while broadly keeping their worldwide assets outside the UK tax net –  indefinitely. However, that is not to say they