How we work out your figures
Everything Mortgage Meadow shows you is worked out from the figures you type in, using the model below. It’s deliberately a simple one — simple enough that you can check it — and that means it won’t match your lender to the penny.
The model
- Interest is applied monthly, to the balance at the start of each month, at the rate you entered. Many lenders calculate interest daily. Over a full term that difference is real but small; it means our figure and theirs will never be identical.
- Payments are in arrears. A month accrues interest first, and the payment that settles it is made at the end. So the payment for your first month falls one month after the start date, not on it.
- We never assume you’ve paid. If a month has gone by and nothing is logged against it, we don’t pretend a payment happened — interest accrues and the balance goes up. Most apps quietly tick off your standing order. We think telling you a month was paid when it wasn’t is worse than an awkward number. Log the payment and it settles.
- Your rate is held as you entered it until you tell us it changed. We don’t predict rate movements, because nobody can.
- An overpayment reduces the term, not the payment.That’s the common arrangement and it’s the one that saves the most interest — but lenders differ, and some reduce the monthly payment instead unless you ask. Check which yours does.
- Early repayment charges come from the bands you enter. We show what a full redemption would cost today. Your lender’s rules — including how much you may overpay each year before a charge applies — are in your mortgage offer, and they govern.
What we leave out
Arrangement fees, product fees, valuation and legal costs, insurance, and anything else that isn’t a payment against the balance. None of it is included unless you enter it. A projection is a forecast of one thing — the balance — not the total cost of owning a home.
Which figures are authoritative
Your lender’s. Their statements and their calculations are the record of your mortgage. Where they differ from Mortgage Meadow, they are right and we are not. We’re a way of seeing the shape of it and trying out an idea before you commit — not a substitute for your lender’s numbers, and not financial advice.
Mortgage Meadow is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Nothing here is a recommendation about your mortgage. If you want one, speak to a mortgage adviser authorised by the FCA — you can check a firm on the Financial Services Register.
Keep your own copy
Your figures are encrypted on your own device before they reach us, so we hold a copy we can’t read — and can’t restore for you if you lose your passphrase and your recovery code. We’d suggest exporting your payments now and then and keeping the file somewhere safe. It’s yours, it opens in a spreadsheet, and it means you’re never dependent on one device or on us.