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Original poster

Paying off mortgage - First Direct sounding very casual?

29 replies

HappyMamma2023 · 06/01/2026 10:27

My Dad passed away last year and we received an inheritance so we are paying off 1 of 2 mortgages with First Direct. Just rang them and they said they'll send a text with the redemption fogure and I need to pay by 6pm same day. I asked how to do this expecting to go to the bank and do a Chaps payment. They said I can do this on my online banking app? I don't know what I was expecting perhaps a letter sent in the post? It sounds quite cadual and it's a lot of money so it's making me feel a bit worried. Anyone else paid their morthage off early with First Direct? It's £66k so quite a lot of money. Thank you

OP posts:
quarrybanks · 07/01/2026 22:49

NerdyBird · 07/01/2026 11:30

Did you get a confirmation the mortgage is officially closed? I was told you can’t just transfer the remaining balance, you need to request the redemption figure. That was Halifax though.

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Yes! It was First Direct.

NerdyBird · 09/01/2026 09:06

quarrybanks · 07/01/2026 22:49

Yes! It was First Direct.

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I guess banks can set their own rules then, intetesting. I don’t think the redemption figure was particularly different to the remaing balance anyway when I did it.

ThatDaringTurtle · 09/01/2026 21:01

OompaLoofah · 06/01/2026 10:56

Op - before paying it all off, are you still in a fixed rate and will need to pay an early repayment charge (ERC) to close the mortgage?

If so, as first direct allow unlimited overpayments you would be best paying off most of the mortgage balance and leaving around £500 balance and asking First Direct to replan/calculate your monthly DD payments for the remaining term. You can then calculate how much extra to pop in each month to have it paid off by the time the ERC expires.

We did this and instead of paying a £2k ERC fee(as usually it’s based on the initial amount you borrowed at the start of the fixed term, as opposed to the balance of the mortgage when you want to pay it off early), we just paid the bulk off and then £30 a month until our fixed rate expired and paid a few ££’s in interest each month for c.18months.

The total amount of interest we paid was tiny, so we saved by not forking out loads on the ERC fee.

The last bit of cash we would use to pay off the mortgage at the ERC expiration date then sat in a savings account earning similar interest to the interest rate of our mortgage, so that offset most of the mortgage interest we were paying.

Edited

Hi we are in a fixed Rate till Feb 2027. We have just received a critical ilness payment out. It won't cover the full balance owed. We will still owe around £30000. Im unsure what to do.

cheeseomelette · 09/01/2026 21:44

I’ve just looked at mine and my total balance is £13.95.. I overpaid for years and have been paying about a fiver a month for about 3 years to avoid an early repayment charge .

I think the last payment is April 🥳

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