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Some of Britain’s biggest  mortgage lenders are continuing to charge higher interest rates for new customers and neglecting to pass on the falls in market lending rates, which have been easing a little over the past several weeks.

We are all aware the Bank of England slashed its main interest rate to 3 per cent last week, the lowest it’s been in more than 50 years and that further interst cuts are expected shortly, possibly as soon as December. New information received this week shows that inflation is falling faster than expected.

The Office for National Statistics yesterday stated inflation, fell to an annual rate of 4.5 % in October, down from 5.2 % in September. Economists had been expecting a smaller drop but a combination of falling petrol prices and a slowdown in the growth in food prices helped to bring the rate down faster than first thought.

Homeowners with tracker rate mortgages are set to see massive drops in their monthly payments after this month’s 1.5 % cut in the Bank of England interest rates, new customers looking for new tracker mortgage deals are likely to be paying a bigger margin above the Bank rate than they would have done just a fortnight ago. Libor, the rate at which banks lend to each other,has fallen, from about 5.7 per cent at the end of last month, to a little over 4 %.

However, as the gap closes between Libor and the Bank rate, lenders are still increasing the margin on new mortgages. Halifax released a new range of trackers mortgages the other day, which charge between 1.99% and 2.39 % above the Bank rate. Last week, Lloyds, Abbey and Alliance & Leicester also released new trackers – all priced at least 1.79 % above the Bank rate.

“The margins are very wide – much wider than they were a month ago,” said David Hollingworth, of London & Country Mortgages, the independent broker. “But for many consumers, a bigger problem will be that most of the products available at the moment are only for those with a low loan to value [LTV].”

Almost the whole range of new tracker rate mortgages available are only open to borrowers with more than 25 % deposit available or current equity in their property. For homeowners who have a mortgage worth 80 % LTV or higher of their property’s current value, it is almost impossible to get a tracker mortgage. And for those with a 90 per cent LTV, there are only a few products on offer – mostly at much higher interest rates more than double the Bank rate.

Mr Hollingworth said a rising number of borrowers may be forced to revert to their bank’s standard variable rate (SVR). This may not be as unappealing as it once was, as many banks have slashed their SVRs by 1.5 percentage points since the start of the month, after the Chancellor put pressure on them to pass on the full Bank rate cut.

Sue Anderson, of the Council of Mortgage Lenders, defended the banks’ decision to increase the margin on their trackers. “It reflects the mix of business levels that lenders now have,” she said. “A lot of lenders fully cut their SVRs by 1.5 percentage points, even though their own funding cost would not have been cut by that amount.”