After £4.3bn and a load of hype, we have a sleek new fifth terminal building at Heathrow airport. Shame it came complete with organisational chaos. Cancelled BA flights have averaged between 14% and 18% of …
Claim back the cost of travel chaos
Category: Personal Finance
The end of an era – the 100% mortgage is no more
It’s the end of an era. The last widely-available 100% mortgage product has been taken off the market. Abbey, the UK’s third-biggest lender, has yanked the no-deposit deal. It’s also planning to raise its tracker …
Your cash deposit may not be as safe as it looks
As markets from equities to commodities succumb to ever-wilder mood swings, many private and institutional investors are, quite sensibly, hoarding cash. Given the attention focused on how creditworthy our banks are, some may well be …
Britain follows America into recession
Northern Rock’s management and shareholders are among the most prominent victims of the credit crunch. Now its mortgage borrowers will feel the full force of the storm. To shrink Rock’s balance sheet in order to …
Home sour home
I have been writing here for years now about all the horrors that are finally coming to light – the end of the credit bubble, recession in America and so on. But the thing that …
Money-saving tips for a downturn
This article is taken from Merryn Somerset Webb’s free weekly personal finance email, Money Sense. Click here to sign up now: Money Sense A normally busy restaurant near me was half empty on Saturday evening. …
Tax laws: Save your sympathy for the Doms
The run-up to Chancellor Alistair Darling’s Budget next week has been dominated by the yelps from non-doms who have lived here for decades, objecting to having to pay a bit of extra tax to maintain …
Tax dodge of the week: act fast to save on CGT
Indexation relief is disappearing on 6 April when the new capital gains tax (CGT) flat rate of 18% comes into force, so use it now, says Mike Warburton in The Daily Telegraph. You will, however, …
How the credit crunch will affect homeowners
It’s currently impossible for a day to go past without hearing about the credit crunch. But while we all know that it is causing trouble for the world’s banks and stockmarkets, what does it mean …
Why lower interest rates won’t help homeowners
It’s starting. Banks and lenders look set to reap the whirlwind of their carelessness of the past few years. They’ve thrown themselves upon the mercy of the state, and now the state is going to …