Darling speech sparks Nationwide 25-year offer

The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, says that more long-term mortgage deals, of 10 years or more, are needed to prevent brokers and lenders from continuously charging expensive arrangement fees, which has a detrimental effect of affordability. Nationwide originally offered a 25-year fixed-rate deal in March 2007 and sold £250m of long-term mortgages in just five weeks. Five interest rate rises over the last 12 months, and a further rise to 6% expected by the end of the year, have left many homeowners struggling to make mortgage payments. A long-term fixed-rate mortgage means that customers...