You’ve gone through all the terms and conditions, and you still can’t believe what the mortgage broker is telling you: go for a home loan package that has a lock-in clause. You can’t make sense of it – why take a loan where you’d be charged a fee for trying to repay it early; or which stops you from refinancing into something cheaper? Is this just because the bank is paying them a higher commission? Not quite. As it turns out, the much warned-about “lock-in” clause doesn’t affect every borrower the same way; and there are circumstances when lock-in loans are still a fair choice. You just need to be aware of when that is. What is the lock-in clause? It varies between home loans, but in general, this is a penalty fee for trying to refinance or redeem (pay off) the home loan early. In most cases, the penalty is 1.5 per cent of the outstanding loan amount, minus any additional fees that the bank may charge....