Mortgage lenders are penalising home owners with children by reducing the amount they can borrow. The crackdown could potentially prevent them from switching to cheaper deals when interest rates rise.
Many banks and building societies have tightened their affordability criteria in light of the Financial Services Authority's post-credit-crunch review of the mortgage market. But it has emerged that families with children are being hit hard.
Parents will now usually qualify for a smaller mortgage than similar couples without children. Depending on the lender, the reduction might be about 10pc, but could be as high as nearly 20pc. This has triggered fears that parents may not be able to switch to fixed-rate and other competitive deals to protect the family home when interest rates finally begin to rise.
Carol Begbie of Female Independent, a mortgage broker, said: "Lenders have always asked about dependants when assessing the ability of applicants to repay a loan. But having children didn't actually reduce the amount you could borrow. Now it does and this is becoming a significant problem.

Insurance companies penalise single, young and especially male drivers. Welcome to the real world, except that having children is a choice and already subsidised.

I can see this becoming a serious problem.

At least in comparison to the consequences of lending people money they can't afford to repay as soon as the interest rate climbs by a small increment I don't see it as a problem. There are plenty of places up for rent round my way, hardly any for sale. If you can't afford to buy, rent. That's what I did. There is a peculiarly British idea that you have a 'right' to own your home. Firstly, you don't. You have a right to shelter but that's a mile away from owning a property. Secondly, if you have a mortgage, you don't actually own it anyway, you're just renting it off a bank rather than landlord (except of course the bank has virtually none of the legal responsibilities a landlord does).

When I took out a mortgage on my place, the maximum any bank would give me was three times my income (which was a lot less than it is now, as well). My brother bought a house about five years ago and his mortgage was four times his and his wife's joint incomes. I'm fairly comfortable with my payments, he's bricking it every time the base rate rises by half a percent. Which of us has a 'serious problem'?

If we don't give people outlandish mortgages, they won't buy houses at outlandish prices. Thus the price of property will fall and lower income buyers (and those being sensible about the amount of money they borrow) will be able to afford to mortgage a property. I don't see how any of this is a problem at all.

News to those who don't have them yet...CHILDREN ARE.....EXPENSIVE

However, I suspect she will start costing a lot more as she gets older.

Insurance companies penalise single, young and especially male drivers. Welcome to the real world, except that having children is a choice and already subsidised.

I notices last year that they started asking the question "Will you be carrying children in the car?". I was wondering what the motive behind that was. Are parents more likely to be distracted by a kid throwing a toy at them from the back seat?

I notices last year that they started asking the question "Will you be carrying children in the car?". I was wondering what the motive behind that was. Are parents more likely to be distracted by a kid throwing a toy at them from the back seat?

Probably because you will take the kids on the school run which is probably the most dangerous route of all. Will parents have to muzzle the kids and put them in cages now?