Wait a minute, that's not how I wrote it. I meant that terminating the existing contract and then signing a new one is the worst solution. That’s an important difference.
Nobody knew at that time that you wouldn’t have to pay a closing fee for the new contract. Although I do wonder a bit how they plan to make money then.
Yes, that’s true. I did not quote you exactly. I didn’t think it was that important at the time. Sorry!
I don’t pay a closing fee because I work for a subsidiary and therefore get employee conditions. Of course, that’s nice but with the mini home savings plan it’s not a huge saving. My old home savings contract was already largely “over-saved” and the building society accepted nothing except the VWL and kept asking me to terminate it. Surely the savings interest would have been better there, but since it was only about very small amounts, I just took the simplest way.
Basically, I don’t think the home savings contract now is bad at all (even if I originally wanted to use the VWL elsewhere). That way a nice amount quietly accumulates, which you can look forward to at some point.
By the way, for our building financing, we recently also took out a “large” home savings contract to secure the KFW remaining debt. We did that through the bank and not through my employer. Conditions were the same, we had to pay a closing fee to the bank but in return we fall into a “gold customer status” at HVB and get a €300 bonus annually. The closing fee is thereby recovered by the third year and we have everything in one place (the easiest way).