HOMEOWNERS were dealt a double blow last week as the Bank of England declined to cut interest rates and some of our biggest mortgage lenders raised rates regardless. Abbey, Britain’s second-largest lender, hiked prices for the third time in a fortnight taking its two-year remortgage fix from 5.77% to 5.89% and its two-year tracker from 5.86% to 6.14%. Nationwide, the UK’s biggest building society, has increased trackers by 0.25 percentage points.

Brokers have been inundated with calls as tens of thousands of borrowers have rushed to remortgage in response to disappearing deals. Ray Boulger of John Charcol said: The problem is getting worse.I can’t remember a time when we’ve had so many lenders changing criteria or rates so frequently.