Mortgage help: your questions answered

This is an audio transcript of the Money Clinic podcast episode: ‘Mortgage help: your questions answered’

Claer Barrett
Ouch, ouch, ouch.

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Andrew Bailey
I know this is hard. Many people with mortgages or loans will be rightly worried about what these changes mean for them. But if we don’t raise rates now, high inflation could stay with us for longer.

Claer Barrett
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey there. Raising the cost of borrowing is the only tool the Bank of England has to try to tame inflation. Now, these increases are not squeezing all mortgage borrowers just yet. But it’s safe to say that everyone is worried about the impact on our bills and budgets and ultimately the economy. And while it’s a big rise, it’s unlikely to be the last. A scary prospect for anyone with a mortgage or hoping to buy a home in the future. But please don’t panic. It’s time to take a breath, settle down and listen to the expert analysis and practical tips that our podcast experts have to offer you.

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Welcome to Money Clinic, the weekly podcast about personal finance and investing from the Financial Times. I’m Claer Barrett, the FT’s consumer editor.

We’re going to cover all the bases on this episode. How to find the best deal if your mortgage rate is expiring, as well as how to weigh up the different options, something I know many of you are trying to do. Plus, details of how to access the help that lenders are obliged to offer you if, like many people, you fear you can’t afford the new level of repayments. For those lucky enough to be on a low fixed for a few years, we’ll look at the pros and cons of overpaying your mortgage. And we’ll consider what needs to happen for rates to start moving in the opposite direction. So let’s meet today’s all-star panel of experts, starting with Chris Giles, the FT’s straight-talking economics editor. Hi, Chris.

Chris Giles
Hi, Claer.

Claer Barrett
We also have Adrian Anderson, who is a director at the mortgage broker Anderson Harris, who’s taking time out of his busy diary to join us today. Thank you, Adrian.

Adrian Anderson
Hi. Thank you, Claer.

Claer Barrett
And last but not least, Sarah Pennells, the former journalist, now consumer finance expert at Royal London. Thanks for joining us.

Sarah Pennells
Thank you, Claer. Hello.

Claer Barrett
OK. Let’s start with the bigger picture. How much higher could rates get? Now, this is a crucial question for anyone deciding whether to take out a two-year, a five-year fixed or even go on to a tracker. Chris, let’s start with you. Reading the runes from the inflation data this week and then the Bank of England’s big move on Thursday, what’s your assessment?

Chris Giles
Well, I think the assessment has to be slightly conditional. If inflation keeps disappointing like it did earlier this week, rates could go quite significantly higher. That 5 per cent now, they could easily go to six. They could go even higher still, if inflation keeps on coming in much higher than expected. But if inflation does decline this year as most people expect, and it starts in some sense behaving itself a little bit better, then they need not go much higher still.

So just to put these numbers, to put some concrete numbers on this, most economists think that they’ll rise from 5 per cent to the sort of five and a quarter, five and a half. So one or two more quarter point raises. Financial markets are a bit more gloomy in terms of interest rates. They think it’s going to end up the peak being closer to six. But, you know, all of this, all of these forecasts of economists, financial markets, they have been wrong in the past and wrong in one direction over the past year. And in each case, interest rates have gone higher and then expectations have moved up. And that’s all because inflation has proved to be more sticky and more persistent and more problematic than we thought.

Claer Barrett
Mmm. Now, staying with that theme, of course, the higher rates get, you could say the higher the chances of the UK economy going into a recession. What’s your take on that?

Chris Giles
Well, I think that’s exactly right. The more problematic inflation is, the more action the Bank of England needs to take. And that action is to clamp down on spending, make life really difficult for households, for companies so that companies think twice about raising prices. And that is the rather blunt and brutal way that monetary policy works. It’s pretty arbitrary who it hits and all of these things are true. But the key point about monetary policy is you’re actually trying to make life nicer for savers, harder for people who borrow and spend. So that the level of spending in the economy falls maybe as far as going negative on a year on year basis that, say, and having a recession, the hope is that it doesn’t need to be that bad. But it’s quite often the case that if you really have to stamp inflation out of the economy, the situation has to get worse before it gets better.

Claer Barrett
Mm-hmm. OK, so message to listeners is very much: batten down the hatches. But the government, of course, has ruled out providing financial help for people who are already struggling to pay their mortgages. Chris, could you tell us what the reasoning is behind that?

Chris Giles
Well, the reasoning is because the policy is actually trying to make life harder, if you then bail people out, it’s not having the effect that you want it to have, broadly speaking. Now, of course, what government could do, but is at the moment not saying in any way it wants to do, is it could redistribute income. So it could put up taxes on some groups in society who are not suffering in the same way that maybe middle age or younger people are with large mortgages and redistribute a little bit money to them so that there’s a pain across the economy and not so concentrated among the people who are coming to the end of their two- or five-year fixes. That’s all within the government’s gift. If they want to do that, they could do that.

But what they can’t do and don’t want to do is sort of undermine the Bank of England’s actions, which is trying to create some more pain overall in the economy. And the problem really is that pain is so concentrated among a relatively small number of people, it’s millions, but it’s still relatively small compared with the whole population.

Claer Barrett
And people listening may well feel, “Yes, I am within those millions.” So we’re going to move on now to Sarah Pennells. Now as we sit here on Friday morning in the FT studio recording this, the chancellor Jeremy Hunt has summoned all of the big banks and mortgage lenders to No 11 Downing Street for a mortgage summit. Now, is this just a PR exercise to make it look like the government’s doing something? I mean, what can he ask the banks to do?

Sarah Pennells
Well, as Chris was saying, the government has ruled out offering direct help for people who are struggling with their mortgage payments. The government, though, is under pressure to show that it is doing something and it understands the pain that millions of mortgage holders are either going through at the moment or are worried about sort of coming down the track. So I’d like to think it’s more than a PR exercise. When the chancellor met the mortgage lenders last year in December, then something concrete did come out of that in that mortgage lenders sort of promised that they would make it easier for existing customers to move on to sort of an attractive deal without having to go through affordability tests and so on. And they did also say, crucially, that they would aim to get specialists trained up, will make sure they’re available to deal with people who are facing arrears. So something I think did come out of that.

This time round I think it’s slightly different because actually there are already some guidelines that the financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, issued just a couple of months ago in March, telling mortgage lenders about the kind of things that they could do and therefore it kind of expects them to do to help people who are facing difficulties or who are already in arrears. And it was basically telling people, mortgage lenders, to take quite a pragmatic approach and that, for example, if somebody wanted to and was going to move on to an interest-only deal, then they wouldn’t have to have the normal kind of “Have you got a way of paying this off?” test that somebody would generally have to pass. So I think the chancellor will want to make the mortgage lenders aware that he has them firmly in his sights. There are already the guidelines for them to do quite a lot to support customers.

I suppose the flipside is savers as well and the kind of deal that they get. Because although I mean, there’s no doubt that savings rates have risen since mortgage rates started rising in, what is it, December 2021, and you can now, for example, get about 4 per cent on an easy-access account. It’s by no means across the board, and there are plenty of people who will have their money in accounts that are paying 1 per cent or possibly even less.

Claer Barrett
Mmm, indeed. I got a text from a bank I have a savings account with the other day saying, “Your rates’ gone up.” And I clicked on it thinking, “Great.” Nought point one per cent was the answer (chuckles). Not good enough. Now, with 800,000 households set to roll off their fixed on to much higher rates by the end of this year, many are seeking the help of a mortgage broker as they decide what to do.

Now, Adrian, you’re a mortgage broker. You’ve taken time out from a very busy schedule to join us today. Just tell us what the last few weeks have been like in your office.

Adrian Anderson
Well, we’ve understandably had a very hectic and busy couple of weeks. Clients are going to see a big increase in their mortgage payments. So they’re naturally very concerned about how that’s going to look for them. I think what we need to remember is anybody who’s had a mortgage for the last 14 years has enjoyed a very cheap rate of interest, and all of a sudden the interest rates are increasing and increasing very quickly. So we’re going to have to get used to this.

What we’ve seen in the past couple weeks is banks have been pulling fixed-rate products very quickly with very short notice, and they’ve been increasing the pricing quite considerably as well. So anybody who has a mortgage whose rate is due to expire fairly soon is trying to lock into that rate as quickly as they can. Our job as mortgage advisers is to speak with our clients, understand what their circumstances are, and work out which rate is going to be best for them. And then our job is to make an application to book that rate. But what we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks is banks have been pulling products extremely quickly, maybe only gives them a couple of hours’ notice or notice that the rates are going to be removed from the following day. So some of my colleagues have been working up until about 11 o’clock at night submitting applications, trying to make sure that we can get the best possible terms in place for our clients before their rate increases.

Claer Barrett
Mmm. In your experience, Adrian, who are the clients, the mortgage borrowers, who are most likely to be struggling right now?

Adrian Anderson
I would predict right now it’s going to be recent, first-time buyers who are probably going to be struggling the most. Two years ago, the government were encouraging first-time buyers to get on to the property ladder with the stamp duty holiday tax break. Forty-two per cent of people who took a mortgage two years ago took a two-year fixed. And some of these rates were at sub 1 per cent. And now a lot of these rates are going to be 5 per cent plus. So there’s a lot of borrowers who probably stretched themselves to get on to the property ladder with a very cheap mortgage. And now that mortgage two years later now is a lot more expensive than what they were paying before. At the same time, when the other outgoings have increased: utility bills, food, fuel, etc . . . 

Claer Barrett
I mean being a first-time buyer, I mean, often young couples, you get the house, then you try and have a baby now that you’re secure. So many of them could be presumably having childcare bills to factor into the equation too.

Adrian Anderson
Yeah, absolutely. Just as an example, actually, we were introduced to a new client last week. They got a two-year fixed deal at nought point eight nine per cent, which is expiring soon. The new deal they’re going to be paying two-year fixed is 5.3 per cent. They are expecting a child over the summer. So there’s a classic example of somebody whose outgoings probably going to be increasing. Income may be going down and a mortgage increasing considerably at the same time as well.

Claer Barrett
OK. Well, I’m sure there are lots of people in that position. But let’s inject some practical advice here. We’re going to walk through the likely process for you if your fixed-term deal is expiring. Now, Adrian, I guess the first point that you will want to make to people listening is that doing nothing, trying to avoid the issue, as horrible as it is, is going to be costly.

Adrian Anderson
If you don’t take any action at all, your mortgage will most likely revert to the lender’s standard variable rate. Now there are no penalties to come out of a standard variable rate. But that mortgage rate is currently likely to be about 8 per cent. And if interest rates continue to increase, then that mortgage pay rate will most likely increase as well.

Claer Barrett
I mean, it’s like a rip-off rate, I call it. (chuckles) If you don’t do anything, you revert on to this. It’s the same with all kinds of other contracts in the financial world, whether it’s mobile phones or broadband or energy bills. But this is one area that people really do need to avoid. But then the good news Sarah referenced earlier is that even if, like your example, if those buyers whose financial circumstances have changed, if they stay with the existing lender under those promises that the regulator and politicians made the mortgage lenders sign up to, they have to offer borrowers a new deal other than the SVR. So there is a way of getting a lower rate. But you have to ask.

Adrian Anderson
That’s correct. So most lenders are trying to retain existing customers. So if you are unable to remortgage to another lender, your bank should be offering you a new product that you can move on to. Now, of course, there may be a rates that you . . . a fee that you may have to pay to go on to that rate, but there should be products available for you to move on to without you necessarily having to go through the whole underwriting process. And you can usually book these rates with your lender about six months in advance. Some of them are slightly less, but most of them you can book early. So if anybody has a mortgage coming off up until sort of December or January, you really should be looking now and you can potentially book a rate. And if mortgage rates actually go down and you have a rate booked with your lender before that rate is torn down, if the rates decrease, you should be able to request a cheaper rate as well before you draw down that mortgage.

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Claer Barrett
Now, the better shape your finances are in, the more options you’re going to have when it comes to securing a mortgage deal. And obviously a broker can help you find the best ones. But before we get on to quizzing Adrian about what type and what length of deal might be best for you, we’re going to look at the options for those who can’t afford to pay. And Sarah, let’s face it, this is going to affect so many people who’ve never been behind with a payment, never missed a credit card or gas bill, anything. And now all of a sudden, their biggest bill, their mortgage, is something that they’re thinking, “Crikey, can I actually afford to pay this every month without borrowing more money elsewhere?”

Sarah Pennells
There are some figures, again, from the Financial Conduct Authority that showed around 10mn people are struggling to pay some kind of debt. So credit card, overdraft loans, those kind of things. And we’ve been tracking the cost of living for the last year. We started in February a year ago, and our most recent research was this spring.

Claer Barrett
This is at Royal London.

Sarah Pennells
At Royal London, yes. And I think if there’s one message I’d like to get over, it’s about really asking for help early on. So again, people were telling us they weren’t asking for help generally until they were in financial crisis. That’s what two-thirds of people were doing. But the earlier you ask for help, often the more options are available. And I think it’s understandable. You know, people want to feel they can sort out their own finances. It can be a mixture of, you know, pride or embarrassment.

Claer Barrett
Yeah. Shame.

Sarah Pennells
Shame. Huge amounts of shame around money as you know, having talked about it for many years as I have, and especially around anything about arrears or debts. And I think there is also a fear among some people that if they talk to their mortgage lender because, you know, most people’s home is not just a financial investment. It is . . . 

Claer Barrett
It’s their castle.

Sarah Pennells
It is. And it’s . . . it has huge emotional value. This concern that if I talk to my mortgage lender, I’ll alert them to the fact that I’m struggling and they may either mark my credit file in some way — which is not true, by the way — or that they may take some sort of punitive action because they know I’m in trouble, but also not true.

Claer Barrett
Take my home away from me. Yeah, not true.

Sarah Pennells
Exactly. Actually, no, it’s not true. So the earlier you can ask for help, the better. Don’t wait until you’ve missed a payment before you get in touch with your mortgage lender, because there may be some options that would have been available to you if you had a perfect payment record that would not now be available.

Claer Barrett
Now to reassure people listening who are thinking, “Yeah, that is me,” and I feel like I am that kind of person who . . . is it bad enough to phone up and talk to my mortgage lender, I spoke to UK Finance this week who are the trade body that represent all of the big banks and mortgage lenders in the UK, and they have assured me that banks are ready and waiting to hear from their customers. They’ve got specialist teams set up. I’m sure they can feel the eyes of the regulators and the politicians are on them. And they’re trying new ways to make it less intimidating for people to contact. There’s webchat with a human rather than an algorithm. And also one bank, interestingly, said it’s offering WhatsApp to try and just break down the stigma of making the phone call, having to take that deep breath.

Also in my FT column this week — it’s free to read and there’s a link in the show notes — we got some great advice from friend of the podcast Sarah Williams, who is best known as the blogger in Instagram @DebtCamel. She’s got lots and lots of tips for going through your budget, maybe talking to a debt adviser before you speak to your mortgage lender. If you want to feel more prepared and more confident. And yes, debt advice is for you. If you are worried about a big debt like a mortgage, absolutely. You can phone in. And as Sarah says, please don’t leave it too late. Don’t miss a payment. There’s so much more that can be done.

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Now, we’re going to go through the options of what can be done. Those promises that the mortgage lenders made about the options people could take.

Sarah Pennells
There are several things. For example, the mortgage lender may accept lower payments for a time, so technically you’re in arrears, but they won’t chase you up for that money during the time when you’re in this sort of lower payments situation. They may let you go on to an interest-only mortgage, assuming you’re on a repayment deal at the moment for a period of time, and that will obviously reduce your payments and it could just give you that kind of breathing space to get back on your feet. They may also give you what’s called a payment holiday. Now, I don’t really like that term because, you know, holidays, I’m like . . . (laughter)

Claer Barrett
Sound a bit positive.

Sarah Pennells
 . . .  I’ve been tripping off to the beach. But it just means you don’t make your mortgage payments at all for some time. As with all these options, there are pros and cons. And the con, the disadvantage of not making your mortgage payments is obviously those arrears build up and also the interest as well.

Now, with all these options, once you’ve spoken to your bank and you’ve agreed whatever method you know works for you both, then that will probably go on to your credit file. But your mortgage lender should tell you what information will go on your file. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that, you know, you’re going to be seen as this sort of delinquent borrower who’s not making any efforts to pay. It may be just like an arrangement to pay is marked on your file, which anybody else, any other creditors would know, means you have talked to your mortgage lender, you have agreed a way of making some repayment, you have communicated with them.

The other thing with your credit report is you have the right to put what’s called a notice of correction on there. Now, technically, as you will know, it’s not actually a correction, but it’s a short statement, up to 200 words, where you can explain your circumstances. So if something does go on your credit file, then you could say, “Well, this is my situation. I talk to my mortgage lender. I can make these lower payments or I plan to move back on to a repayment deal within six months or a year.” Whatever it is. And that’s information that has to be read by any lender if you’re applying to them for new credit.

Claer Barrett
So, Adrian, something else that people who are either negotiating with their lender about their current deal or may be looking to achieve for their next deal to level out the payments is extending the term of the mortgage, stretching out the debt. Tell us the pros and cons of that.

Adrian Anderson
Yup. So if you’re looking to remortgage, if you’re the right age, you may be able to extend the mortgage term that you have. So if you’ve got a capital repayment mortgage, the longer the mortgage term you have, the more interest you will actually end up paying. So that’s a bit of a negative. But the lower your payments will be, the longer the capital repayment mortgage term is. So we are seeing some clients looking to actually extend their capital repayment mortgage term to try and keep their monthly payments down.

There’s another potential option which may work for some borrowers if they fit the bank’s criteria. Sometimes if you’re looking to remortgage, you may be able to qualify for an interest-only mortgage. So with an interest-only mortgage, you are only paying the interest on that mortgage. You’re not actually paying any of the capital back. So your monthly payments are going to be even less than a capital repayment mortgage. But of course the downside here is that you are only paying the interest. You’re not actually repaying the mortgage at the end of the term. If you have an interest-only mortgage, you still have exactly the same amounts if you haven’t made any capital repayment. So that would be a high-risk strategy. But that may be available for some people to help get through the short term.

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Claer Barrett
A quick update for me about that meeting that the chancellor had with the mortgage lenders on Friday after our recording. Now, the good news is that the majority of lenders, although not all of them, have gone further now and have agreed to make it easier for customers who are coming to the end of the fixed to secure their next deal. Known as the Mortgage Charter, customers will be permitted to switch to an interest-only mortgage for six months or extend their mortgage term to reduce their monthly payments. And both options can be taken without new affordability checks or affecting your credit score. There’s a link in the show notes to the full announcement. Now back to the studio.

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Now, if you’re in the process of searching for your next mortgage deal, you’re going to have to decide whether it’s better to do a shorter fixed or tracker rate now in the hope that rates will fall back or lock into the certainty of a longer fixed, even if that is at a much higher monthly cost.

Adrian, I turn to you. I mean, this must be the question that all of your customers are asking you right now. Talk us through the pros and cons.

Adrian Anderson
It’s certainly one of the main questions. We are having very long conversations with our clients about the pros and cons of the products that are available. The most common rates available are the variable tracker, two-year fixed, and five-year fixed rates. Most people will take a fixed-rate mortgage. Some clients like the five-year fixed rate because that will give you a longer term where you can budget. You know what your payments are going to be for five years and the mortgage interest rate will actually be slightly cheaper if you take a five-year than a two-year compared to now.

But some clients we’re speaking to are a bit concerned that in Year 3, 4, 5, that five-year fixed rate might look quite expensive. But quite frankly, none of us know whether that might look expensive at that point in time because we don’t know what’s going to happen to interest rates, to mortgage rates. So if you’re not going to be moving within five years and if you’re not going to be overpaying your mortgage by more than 10 per cent per annum and you want the certainty of knowing what your mortgage payments are going to be for the kind of the longer term, then you may be opting for five-year fixed rate mortgage. Two-year fixed rates are still quite common and your two-year fixed rate will be a bit more expensive than a five-year fixed rate. But if you have a relatively low, low loan to valuation mortgage, if you have a strong income, if you could potentially pay, you know, you may be paying a higher rate after two years or if you may be moving, for example, or paying a big chunk down, you may not want to be tied in with a five-year fixed rate. You might be selecting a two-year fixed rate mortgage.

And then, of course, there’s a variable tracker. So a variable-rate mortgage will usually track the Bank of England base rates. So that mortgage will increase as Bank of England base rate increases, but it will come down as and when Bank of England base rate will come down as well. With a variable tracker, that would most likely be seen as a high-risk product. But you can normally get out of that product without paying any penalties. So very long conversation we have with all of our clients about the different options that are available.

Claer Barrett
Are you seeing many clients at the moment who went for a tracker maybe after the mini-Budget madness and are now thinking, “Actually, hang on a minute, I’m going to abandon this and lock into a fixed.”

Adrian Anderson
The landscape looks very different now compared to the messaging that we were getting two or three months ago. The messaging now is that interest rates and mortgage fixed rates are going to increase by more and for longer. So we have seen some clients who took a tracker rate mortgage, maybe Q4 last year or early this year, who have been a bit spooked, who’ve decided that they are going to fix in before the fixed rate increases get even higher and before their tracker margin pay rate increases further as well.

Claer Barrett
A very difficult decision to have to make. Now, Sarah, of course, some people are in a happier position because they haven’t come to this crunch point yet with their mortgage rate. They’re paying a very low rate, may be sub 1 per cent, as Adrian said, but are considering how they should prepare for what’s coming by ramping up their repayments. What advice do you have to offer them?

Sarah Pennells
I think the starting point is to look at how much you have in savings, because it’s a real cliché to say, you know, you should have some rainy day savings. But the last couple of years have really shown us what happens when it pours. So I say make sure that you have three to six months’ worth of your expenses. It does come down a bit to kind of personal choice. And also I’d say things like if you’re on a contract or you’re self-employed, then you need to have more money, not less.

If you have that and there’s still money left over and you have more expensive debt such as credit or store card, then there’ll be more effective use of your money to pay that down first. If there’s still money left over, then there’s two options. One is to overpay as you go along, and most fixed-rate deals will let you overpay around 10 per cent of the money you’re borrowing every year, the capital. If it’s a standard variable rate, there’s often no limit at all. But the problem with that is that once you’ve overpaid, you can’t really get it back. So . . . the situation is so uncertain at the moment. So I would suggest maybe people being a bit more cautious and maybe look at either overpaying at the end of the deal or at the end of the year once they know. They should build up those savings and once they still know they’ve got a good chunk of savings to fall back on, then overpay.

Claer Barrett
And also let’s hope that the banks pass on the benefit of these rate rises to our savers. We want more than nought point one living per cent. Not good enough. Now, what other guarantees are there that banks have to treat customers in difficulty fairly?

Sarah Pennells
Well, from the end of next month, the 31st of July, there’s a new set of regulations coming in called consumer duty, and they apply to all firms that are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. And what those do in broad terms is they say that financial firms have to help their customers to have a good outcome. And there are sort of four overarching principles. And one of these is that firms have to offer their customers support throughout the lifetime of their relationship with the firm. Now, that doesn’t mean that mortgage lenders are obliged to reach a solution that would please all of their customers. But it does mean they have to demonstrate that they have offered support, they have tried to help their customers, and they have to show this as well.

And I think the other thing that’s worth mentioning is a couple of years ago, the FCA had a real focus on vulnerable customers. And of course, vulnerability includes people who are financially vulnerable. And you know, that can happen from one day to the next. So I think those two pieces of one was guidance and one’s a hefty new regulation, are really going to focus mortgage lenders’ minds if they haven’t already been focused by the guidance and the interest from the politicians that we’ve already discussed.

Claer Barrett
Thank you very much to our experts in the FT studio today. Sarah Pennells from Royal London.

Sarah Pennells
Thank you, Claer.

Claer Barrett
Adrian Anderson from Anderson Harris.

Adrian Anderson
Thank you, Claer.

Claer Barrett
And of course Chris Giles, our economics editor.

Now a little word from me to you. I really hope that today’s episode has been helpful. If, like millions of others, you are absolutely tied in knots about what to do about your mortgage or your next move with your property, we’d love to hear from you if you would like us to make more shows about any aspects of the issues that we’ve talked about today and if we can help in any way. We’ve also provided links in today’s episodes to lots of free-to-read FT content. There’s my column I mentioned before, which is all about the kinds of help that you can get, featuring words of wisdom from Sarah Williams, the Debt Camel. And there’s also a link to a free online Q&A that we’ve done with FT readers. That’s me, Sarah and Adrian, who you’ve just heard from, answering lots of questions, which can all help, we hope, you with the decisions that you have to make in the future and to make them without fear and with confidence.

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That’s it for Money Clinic this week with me, Claer Barrett. We’re always looking to chat with people about their money issues for the show. So if you’re interested in being part of the future episode, then email us: money@ft.com. You could also take a peek at our web site: ft.com/money. Grab a copy of the FT Weekend newspaper or follow me on Instagram, I’m @ClaerB.

Money Clinic was produced in London by Manuela Saragosa, and you heard original tunes this week by Metaphor Music. And finally our usual disclaimer. The Money Clinic podcast is a general discussion around financial topics and does not constitute an investment recommendation or individual financial advice. For that, you’ll need to find an independent financial adviser. That’s all the small print for now. See you back here next week. Goodbye.

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