Mortgage lenders that charge fees up to £295 when customers pay back their loans in full are acting in a potentially ‘illegal’ manner and have been branded an absolute ‘scandal’ by industry insiders, according to the BBC’s Money Box programme.

Speaking on the programme lawyer Adam Samuel explained that if a lender increased the figure from, say, £70 to £200 “without either obtaining the customer’s agreement or without using any objective standard by which to measure the amount” then that could be ruled illegal.

Mortgage broker John Cornell commented: “Mortgage lenders vary from the very good to the almost devious in their application of charges to customers’ homeloans.

“Far be it from me to point the finger at individual companies, but they know who they are and they irritate the life out of me and many of my colleagues.”