Prepayment penalty - how much?

Can anyone help me out with this - if one was to take out a personal loan for say €15,000 over a period of 60 months from one of our financial institutions, pay it back at the normal monthly rate for the first 6 months and then decide (after a windfall - one can only hope!) that one is in a position to repay the remaining amount of the loan:

• how much of a prepayment penalty would the lending institution seek to impose - 1 month / 6 month/ 1 year etc. worth of expected interest?
  
• would it be better to try and renegotiate the terms of the loan to reduce the length of repayment term to as short as possible so as to avoid any such penalty

thks

I asked this question to someone in the NIB. I don't know if this only applies to them, but he said that there wouldn't be a penalty. I wanted about 10k but just for a couple of months. He said they wouldn't negotiate a very short repayment term because it is based on your salary and they would feel that you mightn't be able to pay it. He was offering us a loan for say 2 or 3 yrs, we could make repayments for a couple of months and then there was nothing stopping us from then clearing the loan. We would only pay interest for those few months. I thought myself that it seemed a bit too easy - but that was how he explained it to us.

If you take out a variable rate loan there is no penalty. Easy.

With a variable rate loan can you reduce the balance by small amounts if you feel like it?
If for example the balance was 7,000 and i won 100 Euro in the lotto could i pay that into the bank and reduce it to 6,900. Or does it have to be larger lump sum payments that are made

Depends on the terms & conditions of the loan agreement. With a variable rate (including tracker) mortgage loan you can make capital repayments at any stage without penalty although some lenders may have a lower limit on the lump sum that they are prepared to accept.

I can't speak for all financial organisations but in general a penalty will only apply to a Fixed rate loan.
You need to read the T & C's of your your specific loan to be sure but with BOI on a flexible rate loan you can put in lump sums anytime you see fit.
If you're registered for online you can do so anytime you have a few spare euro without the hassle of visiting the bank.

Ya thats what i was wondering really, would it be possible to do it online which would be very handy!

I just thought there might be a minimum amount which would have to be paid at any given time...for example 500 Euro

Corcaigh, the one thing to remember is that you can't take it out again if you need it.
The only time a loan should be debited is on drawdown & Interest charges.

If you put too much in & need access to it you will have to do a new loan application......so be warned only put in what you can afford.

You have to have your loan a/c registered for online banking as well as your c/a.

Have been looking around, very impressed with Tesco. Fixed rate but no penalty for full early repayment. Plus low rates, reckon i could save over 400 Euro over 4 years compared to the larger banks!