Car thieves often steal vehicles and then hit the jackpot when they also find expensive stuff in the boot — laptops, luggage etc.

Imagine the look on some car thieves' faces when they opened the boot and got more than they bargained for!

A Russian man whose car was recently stolen in St. Petersburg said the thieves were in for a surprise…

…as his car contained a wild Asian Leopard Cat!

The car’s owner Mikhail Barakin said:

"My driver and I were in the process of settling the leopard in the trunk of my Mercedes... when three masked assailants attacked us. They managed to get away with the car."

Mr Barakin is offering a reward of £63,000 for the return of his exotic pet which is an Asian Leopard Cat. The cat is considerably more expensive than his Mercedes SUV and is estimated to be worth about £243,000!

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Mr Marakin said :

"I am worried about the leopard. I don't need the Mercedes. If someone returns the animal, I won't press charges."

Mr Barakin, who heads a private television station in St. Petersburg, said the rare breed of Asian Leopard Cat was a gift from a Moscow businessman he had dealings with. He could not say where the animal had been procured.

The Asian Leopard Cat (which is no bigger than your average house cat), is native to Russia's southern border with China and across Southeast Asia. Only a few thousand of the rare species remain, although it is not an endangered animal. 

If the thieves are planning on keeping it they should beware as they do not make good pets, being solitary and reclusive, rarely allowing humans to touch or handle them. They are also carnivorous hunters and could represent a threat to children and other pets.

So that is definitely one kitty they shouldn’t have stolen!

There have been a lot of moves recently to try and breathe some life back into the mortgage market.

And now Halifax is taking the bold move…of paying your stamp duty!!

Halifax is to launch a product specifically designed to help you first-time buyers take your first steps on the housing ladder, offering you an incentive that is designed to pay your Stamp Duty Land Tax.

Effective from the April 29, the mortgage lender revealed you would receive 1% of the purchase price of your property on completion.

However this only applies on their 5 year fixed-rate mortgage up to 90% LTV for properties valued between £175,000 and £250,000.

A cheque will be issued directly to your conveyancer following completion of the mortgage.

Read our guide to Buying Your First Home

A survey from Halifax shows only 24% of you first time buyers have researched and budgeted for Stamp Duty.

A further 20% of you have only made estimates for Stamp Duty in your budget, whilst only 17% of you have bothered to researched the cost of Stamp Duty but have yet to budget for it. Only 31% of you have not considered the cost of your Stamp Duty.

Stephen Noakes, commercial director at Lloyds Banking Group says:

"Our research shows that many first time buyers are unaware of Stamp Duty costs when buying a house. We're committed to helping first-time buyers onto the property ladder and have specifically designed this unique initiative to help with the initial costs of buying their first home."

The deal, launched this week, is aimed at first-time buyers with a deposit of at least 10%. However, mortgage advisers warn that it won’t be all of you and may not represent good value.

The mortgage itself is a 5 year fixed deal at 7.49% and is available up to 90% LTV and you could probably get a better rate on other deals.  

For example, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) currently has a 5 year fixed rate mortgage also up to 90% of a property’s value but this has a more competitive rate of 5.99%.

Even when you consider the stamp duty incentive, RBS’ mortgage still looks more attractive than Halifax’s. 

Stamp duty is currently charged at 1% on properties between £175,000 and £250,000, so if you borrowed £225,000 for a property for £250,000, you would face a stamp duty bill of £2,500. This equates to around 1.11% of the total mortgage or just 0.22% over its 5 year term. In real terms, you could save £15,000 in interest payments over the 5 years.

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So, while the stamp duty offer may be attractive, many of you first-time buyers will be not be happy with this mortgage.

It is important that you do your sums and at this rate the money saved on stamp duty may be offset by the money you spend on interest payments at the higher rate.

It is also worth nothing that £175,000 is more than many of you first time buyers can afford to spend on a property. Figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders now show that the average price of a first-time buyer home is £106,000.

Halifax is also offering to help to both first-time buyers and movers, by paying half of your council tax (up to £1,000) for the first year in your new home. 

Is Halifax’s stamp duty incentive a good one?

And will you take up the offer?

It seems that if you want a cheaper mortgage, you should move to Ireland…

This because banks funded by us, the British taxpayer are offering mortgages in the Irish Republic at half the rate they are here in the UK!

Halifax is charging only 2.74% on a 2 year fixed rate mortgage for first time buyers on Dublin.

A 5 year fixed-rate mortgage would cost borrowers in its home town of Edinburgh 6.14%.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is charging 2.95% for a new mortgage in Ireland, but here in the UK it charges you 5.99% for a similar product!

Hmm, it hardly seems fair does it?

British taxpayers have spent more than £60 billion bailing out RBS and Lloyds Banking Group, leaving the Government with a controlling stake in each.

The margin on these mortgages appears to be drastically different. First-time buyers here in the UK  are desperate for a more competitive market with lower rates at a higher LTV, which Irish borrowers are benefiting from.

Unsurprisingly, mortgage advisers criticised the decision by mortgage lenders to offer significantly different rates, saying it could not be justified, with Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the lobby group, The TaxPayers' Alliance, saying:

"It is appalling that British taxpayers' money appears to be going towards revitalising the Irish housing market rather than helping domestic borrowers.

"Taxpayers did not cough up so that they could then be charged unfair rates while our neighbours in Ireland get a great deal. There is some difference in money market rates, but nowhere near enough to justify charging British people double the Irish rate."

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Halifax and RBS said that their rates should be seen in the context of the British and Irish markets. They said that the Irish market was more competitive and it forced them to accept lower margins on their mortgages.

A Halifax spokesman said:

"Across the first-time buyer ranges available in both the UK and Ireland, there is no direct product comparison available. The length of the product term and the cost of funding are integral in reaching all pricing decisions. These decisions are taken discreetly within their own markets."

Here in the UK, lenders are taking a bigger margin for risk because the probability for default had risen as factors such as unemployment took hold.

Because of this, British mortgage lenders are charging a considerable premium on mortgages with small deposits. 

The most competitive deal worth up to 90% LTV is from HSBC, with a rate of 4.99% on a 2 year fixed rate. This comes with a £1,499 fee though.

So, is it only right that because of the bigger risk in this country, British banks charge higher rates on mortgages?

Or should they be as cheap as Ireland?

- Check out some of the most popular mortgage lenders

Many of us have been affected by the recession…

…and now pets are the latest victims!

The number of pets being dumped by us has jumped by almost 60% in the recession.

Figures from the RSPCA show that 30 animals are being abandoned every day as many if us try desperately to save money. 

In extreme cases, some people are killing their pets rather than face the prospect of paying their food and vets' bills.

Statistics show that in 2007, 7,347 animals were abandoned.

In 2008, that rocketed to 11,586; an increase of 57%.

The figures mean the RSPCA is fighting on two fronts, because as the recession bites it is getting fewer donations, and is being forced to consider cutting jobs.

Calls from those of us pet owners wanting to give up our animals have increased by 52%, with most of us citing financial trouble as the reason. The trend shows no sign of subsiding, as hundreds of animals have already been abandoned this year. 

Cats and dogs are the biggest victims; last year the number of abandoned cats rose by 50%, while dogs increased by nearly 30%.

A recent survey by pet insurers found that even a small dog like a terrier can cost over £20,000 to look after over its life!

However, the number of 'small domestic' pets such as hamsters and rabbits being abandoned fell, perhaps suggesting the relatively low cost of keeping them has saved their furry skins!

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Tim Wass, chief officer of the RSPCA inspectorate, said:

 'It is a challenging time for the RSPCA, but more importantly it is a crisis out there for the animals.

'It is an offence to abandon any animal and there is never any excuse for doing so. If people have pets they cannot care for, for any reason, then help and advice is always available from the RSPCA.

'We know things are going to get tougher. The RSPCA already works with countless other animal charities and groups and this may well increase even further as we all work together to combat the current downturn.'

By abandoned, the RSPCA means an animal that has been left completely alone to fend for itself and has not been handed over to an RSPCA centre or any other organisation or individual to care for it. 

If you are found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal, you face a maximum 6 month prison sentence and/or a £20,000 fine.

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Many of the abandoned pets end up at RSPCA centres, such as the one at Weoley Castle in Birmingham. It is now full and some 150 animals currently need homes.

Daniel Gittens, deputy manager at the centre said:

"Inspectors from the Birmingham area are reporting back to us, they're finding more and more animals being abandoned by their owners". People have just literally left them.

"They've had to leave their premises for one reason or another but they are leaving the animals in the house or the garden. Some have been found up to a month later, emaciated.

"Then on the other side we're finding people having to go into rented accommodation having to sign their animals over for rehoming because the landlord won't allow them to take their animals into their new houses".

The RSPCA offers cut price treatment to those of you who cannot cope with expensive vets bills. The service can carry out treatment for around 60% less than normal vets.

However, the RSPCA’s four hospitals are under huge strain with the Harmsworth site in North London full of people waiting for procedures to be carried on their animals.       

David Grant, the hospital director said:

"I've been a vet for 41 years and these are the toughest times I've ever known, very difficult indeed. Very difficult for my staff, very difficult for people who own animals and very, very difficult for the charities that try to help them."

Are you struggling to look after your pet?

Are things so bad you would consider getting rid of it?

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- Got a horse? Get insurance for that too! 

The RSPCA's 24-hour Cruelty and Advice line is available to help you if you are struggling to look after your pet. Call it on 0300 1234 999.

Nationwide has not been flavour of the month recently has it?

First they started charging you to use your cards abroad then, if you paid to escape your fixed rate mortgage, they won’t let you apply for new one.

And now, they are almost doubling the interest rate for those of you about to come to the end of your mortgage deal!

Nationwide has scrapped its promise that customers on its standard rate would never pay more than 2% higher than the Bank of England base rate.

Nationwide has announced that those of you taking out new mortgages will no longer revert to its market-leading standard variable rate at the end of your deal.

It said any of you who takes out a mortgage from April 30 will instead go on to its new standard mortgage rate (SMR), currently 3.99%, when your deal expires.

The SMR is considerably higher than the group's current standard variable rate, which it calls the base mortgage rate (BMR), of 2.5%. Around a third of the group's mortgage customers, just under 500,000 people, are currently on its BMR, which is considerably cheaper than any of the remortgage deals it has on offer. 

But Nationwide stressed the change would only affect those of you who take out a new mortgage that date, meaning none of you will go onto the SMR for at least two years.

Those of you that are already on the BMR will remain on it unless you remortgage, and those of you on other mortgage deals taken out before the end of this month will continue to revert to the BMR when your current mortgage ends.

Nationwide has the lowest SVRs on the market, along with Lloyds TSB and Intelligent Finance, after it pledged the rate would never be more than 2% above the Bank of England base rate.

Only a handful of mortgage lenders offer SVRs of under 4% after less than 25% of lenders passed on any of March's 0.5% reduction to the base rate.

Nationwide’s mortgage director Andy McQueen explained their decision, saying: 

"The mortgage market has experienced fundamental changes due to the prevailing economic and market conditions. We are currently in a very low interest rate environment, which can be challenging when balancing the needs of both our savers and our borrowers."

“The new SMR will provide us with more pricing flexibility, something which is essential in helping us to offer our savers more attractive products in the future”. 

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But mortgage advisers attacked the move, saying new customers were paying the price for those enjoying lower mortgage interest rates. And they warned that other mortgage lenders could follow by increasing their standard variable rates.

The announcement will cost those of you with an interest only mortgage of £200,000 an extra £2,980 per year, once your initial deal comes to an end. 

The average SVR is currently 4.61% according to personal finance website Moneyfacts.co.uk. Cheltenham & Gloucester, and Intelligent Finance are among those lenders offering a low SVR of 2.5%. 

In one sense, this new move from takes Nationwide further away from its unique selling point as a building society, because it is such a size that it is now very difficult for it to not to work like a bank.

Nationwide’s mortgage decision comes as the number of number of mortgages approved for those buying a home fell by 7% in March, according to the British Bankers' Association who said that overall lending is down 25% compared to a year ago.

A total of 26,097 mortgages were approved for house purchase during the month, following a 16% jump in loans to 28,024 in February.

The number of remortgages also continued to decline, dropping to a nine-year low of 26,831, while total mortgage advances fell to £8.9 billion in March, the lowest level since April 2001.

Is Nationwide’s decision the right one?

Or should they have kept their promise on standard rate mortgages?

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