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Quoted in the Daily Express and on AOL on 21 September 2026.
Fixed mortgage rates don’t follow the Bank of England base rate on their own. Lenders price fixes mainly on swap rates, the market cost of fixing money for two or five years, and those can rise in a month when the base rate hasn’t moved. If your deal ends soon, the number that matters is the rate lenders are offering you, not the base rate headline.
Lenders price fixed rates mainly on swap rates, not the Bank of England base rate.
Swap rates can rise within a month while the base rate stays on hold.
Many lenders let you line up your next rate months before your deal ends.
What moves fixed rates, if not the base rate?
Swap rates reflect what the markets expect interest rates to do over the next few years. When those expectations change, lenders reprice their fixed deals, sometimes several times in a few weeks.
What I told the Daily Express
“People aren’t scared of the Bank of England anymore. They’re more scared of the letter from their lender. Clients ring me six months out, sometimes more, and hardly any of them will ask about the Bank of England. They ask what their new payment will be. The bit I end up explaining most weeks is that a base rate hold doesn’t mean your fix stays put. Rates have jumped in a month while the Bank did nothing. With 1.8 million deals ending this year, that’s a lot of people who could be in for a shock.”
Read the full article on AOL or in the Daily Express.
How early can you look at your next deal?
Many lenders let you line up a new rate months before your current deal ends, which is why clients call me six months out. Whether moving early makes sense depends on your current rate, any early repayment charge and your plans, and that’s what I go through in an appointment.
More on remortgaging, product transfer vs remortgage and early repayment charges.
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