According to Post Office Mortgages at least three million UK borrowers (28 per cent) do not know the rate of interest at which they are currently repaying their mortgage.
Over a third (35 per cent) of borrowers are currently repaying their mortgage at their lender's standard variable rate (SVR), possibly because they believe that they are on the lowest monthly repayments on offer. Yet 29 per cent of these do not know their mortgage rate, and are assuming their SVR is the best rate for them.
Furthermore, 49 per cent believe they can overpay but are not taking advantage of this facility at present.
Post Office personal lending director, Marco Hughes, said: "Although it might seem that staying on your current SVR is the easiest thing to do, you are much more vulnerable to interest rate rises. Some providers have increased their SVRs quite significantly even though the Bank of England base rate has not moved and as a result many borrowers are seeing their monthly mortgage repayments increase more quickly than they thought.”