ecology.co.uk building society woodland mortgages. Anyone got one?

[RobK]

Hi,

I am still browsing woodland websites looking for a suitable wood to buy, but nothing has shown up yet in my price/geographical area/woodland type yet. Some of the prices and sizes of woods available are quite large for a private owner.

When considering purchase prices, I have seen references to the ecology.co.uk building society, about mortgages for more unusual properties. One of the mortgages that they offer is one for "small" woodlands (though they state that they would offer up to £500,000 as 70% of the total purchase price, which would be a fairly large wood!!).

Has anyone had any experience in dealing with the ecology.co.uk building society, or know of anyone else who has? What sort of reputation do they have amongst woodland owners? Is it common (or recommended) to have a mortgage for buying woodland?

Cheers,

Rob

[Binz]

we took out a mortgage, but it was an extension to the existing mortgage on our house.

Looking at the ecology bs website, they charge upto 6.75% on a woodland mortgage, if you own your home and are able to take out the mortgage on that then it should be cheaper.

[DaveTaz]

We had an ecology mortgage in place to buy our wood.

The wood was going to cost £60k and they were going to lend us 60% of that purchase price.

We were also moving house at the same time and happen to be in rented accommodation between the move. This meant for a spell we had a large sum of cash in the bank. We decided to use some of this cash to buy the wood outright and so didn't need the ecology mortgage - just ended up nwith a slightly bigger mortgage when we eventually moved house.

This worked out better in the long run as the ecology mortgage was fixed at 8% at the time and we managed to get a much better deal on the new house mortgage.

Saying that, dealing with the ecology building society was fine and didn't have any problems with them at all.

Hope this is usefull