Cheryl Macleod - ne Eames

20/08/2025

With Visit Dulverton – I just made it onto their weekly engagement list by being one of their top engagers! 🎉

10/08/2025

Historian Andrew Lownie has made some unflattering claims in a book about Prince Andrew.

10/08/2025

08/08/2025

these colours never get old

07/08/2025

A fresh mortgage price war has come to the rescue of hundreds of thousands of borrowers whose cheap pandemic home loans are about to expire. More than 760,000 homeowners’ fixed-rate deals are due to come to an end this year. And many of those will be braced for crippling rises of up to £300 a mon...

03/08/2025

Spotted in The Guardian! 🌳 The fantastic Tarr Farm Inn Ltd has made the list of favourite waterside pubs in the UK!

So well deserved – though just to clear things up… it’s in Somerset, not North Devon 😉 (but we’ll let it slide – after all, Exmoor does straddle both!)

👉🏼 www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/aug/01/readers-favourite-uk-riverside-waterside-pubs

01/08/2025

Is it worth getting insurance for sickness, critical illness etc? Money has written this interesting article:

The dangers of a single breadwinner
With high earners’ debt and spending at elevated levels, is the fact that so much of the household income is made by one person concentrates the risk, and isn’t unusual.
According to the Barometer, among the highest earners 71% are relying on a major breadwinner. If anything was to happen to them, it would put the whole household in financial trouble.
Is it worth getting insurance?
Insurance is high earners’ final money weakness – and also the solution to guarding themselves against the risks from the other financial pain points.
Jude Dawute, managing director at wealth manager Benjamin House, said: “Many higher earners carry large debts and rely on a single income and often overlook the very thing that protects their household – insurance.
Only 53% of high earners have enough life insurance to be resilient, according to Hargreaves’ research. The analysis also shows those with children are particularly likely to fall short, and 49% of parents in the top fifth of earners don’t have enough life cover.
Often people will consider life insurance needs to pay off their mortgage after their death, but may not think about a policy which covers the cost of bringing children up. The average life insurance gap for households with dependents is £89,800, and for homeowners with children it's £194,200, according to Hargreaves’ data.
The average cost of closing the life insurance gap is £134 a year and for homeowners with at least one child it costs an average of £321. Given the other assets high earners have, it might be perfectly feasible to cover their needs.
“Life insurance is a basic must-have,” said Dawute, “it clears debts, replaces lost income, and gives dependents breathing room”.
“Even couples without children should consider it – especially if one is financially dependent on the other. Taking it out early means locking in a lower premium before any health issues crop up.”
Meanwhile, only half (51%) of high earners have critical illness insurance, according to Hargreaves Lansdown’s figures, which provides you with a lump sum of money if you are diagnosed with certain illnesses or disabilities and can’t work.
“Critical illness cover is arguably even more important than life insurance,” said Dawute, pointing to statistics from insurer LV= that found you're more than four times more likely to suffer a serious illness than to die before retirement.
“That could be cancer, stroke, heart attack – all of which can leave you unable to work for months or longer,” he said.
A lump sum payout means you can take time to recover, cover ongoing bills, or make lifestyle adjustments without financial panic. And if you're the main breadwinner? It’s even more critical.
Please contact us for advice on protecting you and your family

23/07/2025

Should you help your children to buy a home?

Critics say that parents who give away money for house deposits are ensuring that prices stay high. We seek opposing views
July 23 2025, The Times
Homeownership is a distant dream for many, despite efforts by the Treasury and regulators to loosen lending rules.

The Bank of Mum and Dad now helps more than 50 per cent of first-time buyers on to the property ladder, according to the estate agency Savills. But is this a necessary act of generosity or is it helping to fuel the housing crisis? We hear both sides of the argument.

No
Christopher Worrall from the centre-right think tank Onward
The Bank of Mum and Dad is not a benevolent institution. It is an inequality engine. Helping your kids to get on the property ladder may feel like good parenting, but it fuels a system that rewards birthright over merit and privilege over effort.
And this is not just about fair play — although that matters. It is about distortion. Housing should be about what you earn, not who you are born to, and yet we’re hurtling towards a feudal set-up where access to shelter hinges on parental wealth. In 2023 more than half of first-time buyers had financial help from family — so much for social mobility.
• Read more money advice and tips on investing from our experts
Meanwhile, the parents are often the ones doing the sacrificing. Draining pensions, dipping into savings, compromising their retirement or their future care needs to prop up a politically induced broken housing system.
Others face tricky family politics. What if one child gets help and another doesn’t? Suddenly the family WhatsApp group turns into a minefield. And don’t forget the long-term cost, because if that gifted deposit pushes mum or dad below the threshold for local authority-funded care, the state picks up the tab. So we all end up paying for this bad idea.
It also warps the market. When we inflate demand from cash-boosted buyers, prices are kept high and the truly independent are shut out. It’s no coincidence that areas with the most intergenerational support are often the least affordable — and the most resistant to change.
Many of those lobbying against new homes do so under the guise of “heritage” or “environmental protection”. All the while ignoring the paradox: if you really want to help your children, stop blocking homes for them to live in.
This is the real betrayal of Britain’s working class. We have normalised parental bailouts instead of fixing the system. Homeownership should be a reward for work and not a birthright.
Parental gifts may be well intentioned. But they entrench inequality, destabilise retirement and price out millions. Let’s call it what it is: a personal favour that perpetuates a national failure.
• Rachel Reeves is right, but she is walking a tightrope — with our money

Yes
Paula Higgins, the chief executive of the HomeOwners Alliance, a campaign group
Helping your children get on the property ladder is a deeply personal decision — but if you’re in a position to offer support, I’d argue it is a good idea.
Intergenerational fairness is one of the strongest reasons why helping your child buy a home is the right thing to do. Many parents benefited from a housing market that has since become vastly less accessible.
In the 1980s the average age of a first-time buyer was about 27. Today it’s closer to 34 — and that’s often with help. Property prices have risen much faster than wages, making it almost impossible for many twentysomethings to buy without a financial leg-up.
If you plan to pass on wealth to the next generation, why not do it when it could make the biggest difference? An inheritance often arrives when adult children are already financially stable or even nearing retirement themselves. But helping them in their earlier years will allow them to stop wasting money on rent and start investing in a secure, long-term home.

A study by the HomeOwners Alliance found that 54 per cent of homeowners with adult children had either already helped them buy a home or expected to in the future. Among homeowners whose children do not yet own property, 59 per cent worried about their chances of ever buying a home.
But help doesn’t have to mean writing a big cheque. There are several ways in which parents can support their children without handing over large sums. You might consider acting as a guarantor on a mortgage or getting a joint mortgage with your child.
There are also distinct financial advantages to the so-called Bank of Mum and Dad. A gift used for a house deposit is inheritance tax-free, provided you live for seven years after giving it. This can also reduce the size of your estate and potentially lower inheritance tax on other assets.
Helping with a deposit means your child may qualify for better mortgage rates, so that they have lower monthly repayments. A larger deposit can also help them to buy a better home — whether that means a larger space or a more suitable location — and reduce the need (and cost) of them moving again soon.
Of course, this all depends on your own financial situation. And one final piece of advice: be fair. Helping one child and not others can lead to family tensions. If you’re lending, be clear and be consistent.

If you need advice on mortgages with a guarantor or with cash please get in touch.
[email protected]

15/07/2025

Thousands of lower earners to be eligible for mortgages in shake-up
Banks and building societies to have dispensation to offer more high loan-to-income mortgages in rules to be announced by Rachel Reeves
July 14 2025, The Times
Tens of thousands of lower earners will become eligible for mortgages for the first time as part of the biggest relaxation of rules since the aftermath of the financial crisis.
In an attempt to make it easier for first-time buyers to get on the housing ladder, banks and building societies will be given dispensation to offer more high loan-to-income mortgages.
The change will mean that Nationwide, Britain’s largest lender to first-time buyers, will reduce the income threshold at which someone could borrow up to six times their income to £30,000 from £35,000. The threshold for joint mortgage applicants will fall to a £50,000 combined salary — down from £55,000.
Other major building societies, including Yorkshire and Skipton, have already applied to the Bank of England for permission to lend more mortgages of more than 4.5 times a borrower’s income.
The Treasury said they expected the changes, to be announced by Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, on Tuesday, to lead to 36,000 more mortgages for first-time buyers being approved a year.
At the same time the Financial Conduct Authority is reviewing lending rules that could allow a prospective buyer to get a mortgage solely from their record of paying rent on time.
The announcements are the latest steps in a succession of changes to the mortgage market that have unwound some of the rules brought in by regulators after the financial crisis.
• Mortgage approvals rise for the first time in four months
Banks have reduced some of the stress test rates they use to check that homeowners can still afford repayments if mortgage rates climb and the Bank of England’s limit of 15 per cent of new mortgages a year above 4.5 times a borrower’s income was introduced in 2016.
The limit across all new mortgages will remain at 15 per cent, but individual lenders can apply to lend more under rules announced by the Bank last Wednesday.
Paula Higgins, the chief executive of the campaign group the HomeOwners Alliance, said it was the “right” decision as it would give lenders more flexibility to support credit-worthy borrowers.
“I know people will say this is a slippery slope back to pre-2008 reckless lending, but this won’t be the case,” she said. “Borrowers still face rigorous affordability checks, and lenders carry the risk — they won’t stretch beyond what’s safe.”
David Postings, the chief executive of UK Finance, the trade association, said: “Easing the loan-to-income cap and introducing a permanent mortgage guarantee scheme will help more first-time buyers get onto the housing ladder. Increasing the number of people who can access mortgage finance is a key part of delivering economic growth.”
The changes will be announced by the chancellor in her annual Mansion House speech. She is also expected to confirm details of a government-backed mortgage guarantee scheme to allow first-time buyers to buy property with a smaller deposit. The scheme is an extension to one introduced by the Conservatives in 2021 which underwrote 53,261 home loans between its launch date and the end of last year, 45,835 of which were to first-time buyers.
That initiative expired at the end of last month and under the new one, dubbed Freedom to Buy by the government, lenders will continue to pay a fee to the Treasury to provide guarantees against potential losses on 95 per cent loan-to-value mortgages in the event of repossession. This would mean that first-time buyers could buy a home with a minimum deposit of five per cent.
Ministers believe that together the reforms will help to unlock homeownership to thousands more people who are forced to rent because they cannot afford to buy or are ineligible for mortgages.
• Leasehold reform delays leave homeowners in financial limbo
Figures from the Financial Conduct Authority show that the number of new first-time-buyer mortgages in the UK has been falling since the peak in 2021, and in 2023 was the lowest since 2013, at 282,000. London had the lowest rate of first-time-buyer mortgage sales since 2013.
In 2023, 12.8 per cent of first-time buyer mortgages were sold for homes located in the capital — down from 16.8 per cent a decade earlier.
In her speech Reeves will say that the changes will have an “instant impact for consumers”.
She adds: “I welcome the recent changes the Financial Policy Committee has announced to the loan-to-income limit on mortgage lending, which the PRA and FCA are implementing immediately. With an instant impact for consumers, such as Nationwide offering its Helping Hand mortgage to more first time-buyers — supporting an additional 10,000 each year.”
But Thomas Lambert, a financial planner at Quilter, a wealth manager, warned: “While it is certainly a good thing that helping prospective buyers appears to have moved up the chancellor’s agenda, the expected changes will still only have limited impact.
“Generally, first-time buyers can only borrow up to 4.5 times their annual income due to affordability tests, meaning those on average salaries can only secure mortgages slightly over £150,000. Additionally, high loan to value ratios increase the risk of negative equity.”
He said: “Ultimately, one of the key strategies that would help first-time buyers onto the ladder is simply to build more stock. This will be the only way of really helping the masses get onto the housing ladder.”

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15/07/2025

These reductions come as swap rates, which banks use to price mortgages, have fallen, giving lenders room to offer cheaper deals.

15/07/2025

Chancellor brushes aside City watchdog’s warnings in bid to boost homeownership

22/02/2025

See the section regarding offset mortgages. We have done many of these - great way of using commission and bonuses to offset your mortgage and reduce tax.

With rumours swirling that cash Isas could be in the firing line, it is time to make sure your savings are shielded from the taxman. City firms are urging the chancellor Rachel Reeves to scale back the generous tax breaks cash Isas offer in a bid to encourage more investment into UK companies via st...