A Sunday Star-Times investigation has found startling differences in the fees banks charge customers to break fixed-rate mortgages, when they are supposed to only recover their costs. And now the Commerce Commission and banking ombudsman are investigating whether customers have been over-charged. Each year thousands of people will break mortgages as they buy and sell houses, and in recent months a flood of borrowers struggling with high longer-term fixed rate home loans tried to refix them, only to be faced with shocking break fees. The Star-Times asked the banks to calculate the mortgage break fees on three customer scenarios and in the worst case there was a $16,510 difference in the lowest and highest fees. You can read the full story here >>>
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