Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse... 'mortgages to soar and interest rates to quadruple in a year’ - 11th Apr 2011

Interest rates are set to quadruple within a year, adding more than £100 a month to a typical mortgage, a senior Bank of England adviser has warned.

Families should brace themselves for a rate rise as officials try to get to grips with soaring inflation, said Andrew Sentance, of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee.

Mr Sentance added that the ‘balance of opinion’ on the MPC, which sets interest rates, was shifting in favour of an increase – the first since March 2009.

Homeowners should look at City forecasts for interest rates when planning their budgets for the coming months, he said.

Forecasts suggested rates would be ‘getting up to somewhere around about 2 per cent next year’ – four times the current 0.5 per cent rate.

His warning came as a study revealed families were facing the biggest squeeze in household incomes since 1921.

A rise in interest rates could plunge millions of families with tracker mortgages into immediate financial difficulty.

A family paying £635 a month on a £150,000 tracker mortgage, for example, would see repayments soar to £750 a month if interest rates rise to 2 per cent.

But Mr Sentance said that an increase was essential to curb spiralling inflation. Read More