[Closed] Mortgage advisors - are they all this bad?

The only saving grace is we’re not paying them a fee. As they’re the builder’s recommended advisor, they get a fee from the builder.

That's why then, she's not actually working for you. Has the builder put his size 10s up her backside yet to get her moving, that would be the most effective strategy?

I struggle with long sentences but yes.

We got a shock when our first mortgage payment DD came out on our first house. It was loads more than expected.
Turnrd out the conniving **** had given us the payment costs for an interest only mortgage.

Didn't affect me much but such a prick thing to do.

Ours was fine - did what he said he would. Cost us £200 on a chunky mortgage but sorted out all the paperwork and dealings with mortgage co. Meant we didn't need sit on a phone for hours trying to get things sorted. And he knew what they needed submitting, in what format and all the stuff that would smooth through the application. Mortgage approved an hour after the valuation visit.

Is applying for a mortgage directly really hard these days? I just remember applying online, supplying the necessary evidence of earnings, and getting approval within a few days. I know there are some more affordability hoops to jump through, but don't the building societies have teams set up to guide folk through the process?

Like @dashed, we paid a fee, I think it was around £250, but our mortgage advisor told us everything we'd need to bring with us, we sat in his office discussing for around an hour one morning, and had an email with an agreement by the end of the day. We got a better mortgage than we'd hoped for (this was early 2008 before the sh*t hit the fan for mortgages worldwide) and of all the flat-buying stuff the mortgage actually turned out to be the easy bit... however I know we were exceptionally lucky.

Has the builder put his size 10s up her backside yet to get her moving

We were told yes. We selected the advisor before the property, so it was a complete coincidence that it was the builders recommended advisor. The person at the advisor who normally works on their cases isn't the one we're dealing with, and the builder was trying to get our case reallocated to her, but that didn't happen.

Mine made the process super easy. They were way faster than the solicitor, everything ready ahead of time!

I've only ever dealt direct with a mortgage lender and never had any issues. Santander particularly were very easy to deal with both on initial mortgage and porting (if you don't mind sitting on hold a lot).

We were 'forced' to meet a firm's preferred mortgage broker as some pretence to proving our finances before an offer was accepted - it took longer to go through his faff than get the mortgage in principle with the lender direct.

One friend of mine has benefitted from a broker but only because the broker appears happy to bend the truth on his behalf - something I can understand in his situation but wouldn't be happy allowing myself (easy to say when things are straightforward I acknowledge)

We’ve used one each time and each time they’ve managed to get us a rate which was lower than anything we could get directly from the same lenders. This was between 0.25 and 0.6% lower each time.

I have to say in my very, very limited experience yes.

I only got as far as the application process with the one that I was recommended by a good friend of mine.

He did nothing to ease my nerves anyway, he requested everything, pay slips, ID etc and asked me to open a Credit Karma account (I already had one) and share the log-in with him, every fibre of my being said not too (I work in IT security) but I did anyway.

He disappears for a week, made a few positive noises, then disappears for a week and comes back, sucks air through his teeth and says "I think I can get you 4.5%, but it will have to be over 30 years to pass affordability" which was really bad news as well, it was bad news, but also we likely to face eviction from our rented place (no fault of ours). It also seemed really odd, perfect credit history, good income, shit deposit but still. Anyway, that one got declined too and he's offering all these explanations which didn't seem obviously plausible (I'm a former credit underwriter, but not for mortgages) and he's talking about going "not quite sub prime".

If I'd trusted him, I'd be paying hundreds a month more, if I could have got it at all. He gave the impression he knew all the positives and negatives that all his lenders look for, after all that's half their value. In reality, apart from a few basics, they'll never tell you their criteria and even if they did, it algorithmic and very complex.

Whatever he did wrong, was fundamental, either he mis-calculated our income or screwed up the credit app because a few days later I walked into our Bank, spoke to a nice Lady, she cleaned up a few details on our application (minor stuff on what income and what expenses went in which box etc) and, it threw up an "A1" score, apparently A1-A3 are auto passes, B1 is local authority and the rest range from 'check with HQ' to 'lock the doors and call the Police' we got the best rate they offer for our LTV and whilst the solicitor was a dick (aren't they always) it passed like shit through a Goose.

I'd have no hesitation going direct next time, that said we both have perfect credit scores and thanks to the gawd knows why housing mini-boom of the last year 85% LTV now so it should be 'easy' enough.

Yep, only one experience but awful. The guy was really smug/smarmy, promised the world, but then never phoned back when he said he would and was v difficult to get hold of, which obviously is very stressful when you're trying to get things moving as quickly as possible!

Then one day he just vanished (hopefully fired for being a useless ****) to be replaced by someone else who [I]seemed[/I] on the ball, but at the last minute (the day before we were supposed to exchange & complete) it was discovered she'd made an error on the paperwork and our solicitor was telling us the mortgage company might not release the funds! Didn't get the phone call saying everything was going ahead OK till the morning of the move, with the removal guys sitting outside waiting to start loading everything up. Mega stressful!!

I've used John Charcol in the past and thought they were pretty good

These days the mortgage is with Barclays and they gave me the mobile number of one of their customer liaison people (or something) and she is really excellent - it cuts out all the call centre nonsense that you usually get with banks these days

We have a response!

They've emailed asking us to send them a signed copy of a document. Which I already did on the 28th of April...

They've also asked for my mrs last 2 months bank statement, but not mine, despite us giving them the last 6 months for each of us already.

It’s been a long time since I arranged a mortgage, but I don’t remember it being this shambolic??? I

I have today just applied for remortgage.

I used three comparison sites. Narrowed it down to three possible lender and products, plus existing one.

I used MoneySavingExpert two mortgage comparison tool to check costs. Narrowed it down to the cheapest two over 5 years.

I looked at a couple of review sites about each lender.

I applied in about half an hour. I have agreement in principle emailed through already.

DIY unless you are a complex case.

DIY unless you are a complex case.

Mrs had been on furlough but isnt now. Initially I went to my bank and they refused to even consider the application, hence using the broker

We used a local guy who was part of the Embrace group. No complaints with what he did. Used for the last 3 remortgages. The last one I did myself as it was just a small amount for a couple of years. We still spoke to him and he ran some calcs and recommended a 1.49 fixed rate Nationwide deal but we did it online and he said no charge from him as he didn't do the application.

All 3 of my kids have used the same to sort out their first mortgages and have been happy with the deal/service they got.

I'm sure experience will vary but we have been happy.

Once and never again. Arranging it was easy enough although I'm not convinced we were offered the most competitive deal as everything was a bit opaque. I work in financial services myself so probably extended a little too much professional courtesy initially. He started to get a bit shirty when I started chasing up the application directly with the lender after he didn't respond to emails asking him to to so.

What really torpedoed the relationship was that he offered to reduce his fee if he could refer us to an insurance broker colleague to discuss life insurance. He turned up, and gave what was probably the most patronising, unprofessional, fag packet presentation, while still managing to find time to stare at my wife's breasts almost without blinking.

Needless to say we made our own arrangements and subsequently received a call from the mortgage broker asking for the rest of his fee as we hadn't taken the insurance. I politely suggested that charging different fees to incentivise insurance products was a bit of a no-no, but would be happy to involve the Ombudsman should he feel strongly otherwise. He then got very angry.

We've gone direct since, with no issues.

Like everything in life there are good ones and bad ones. The one I've used a number of times now is outstanding. Takes care of absolutely everything and communicates everything clearly along the way. Well worth the £250 fee

No.

Ours is great. I paid him £200 the first time we got a mortgage through him, which is a one off. Then just email him and say it’s time to remortgage and he does the rest, and at some point I pop in to his office to sign stuff.

I actually used to work for one of the larger companies a long time ago as an advisor. I can honestly say it’s a very mixed bunch. There were some individuals who I’d trust enormously and would have the sort of industry knowledge and experience you would want and need when buying a home, and others who were every kind of rotten.

It sounds like you’ve found the less competent ones sadly. But they’re not all bad.

My first mortgage was with Nationwide. After a few months I did some maths and worked out that the monthly debit was less than the correct amount for a repayment mortgage. I contacted them and they said oh yes, the figure is wrong, you owe us £XX for all the previous payments. It could have carried on for 25 years and I'd have ended up owing £10,000s through no fault of my own at the end of the mortgage.

They basically had one thing to get right and they couldn't even manage that.

No apology, just a bill for missing payments.

My mortgage advisor is bloody great. Sorted us when we were first time buyers.

Comes back every couple of years and sorts out renewals.

I’ve never paid him a penny either he gets a commission and that’s all he takes.

When we bought our first house the agent said we needed to speak to a mortgage guy who happened to be in the office upstairs. We sat down with him and he told us quite clearly we didn’t have a hope in hell of getting a mortgage for the flat we liked. This seemed odd as we both had good jobs for our age and a nice deposit (this was in 2007). We went to see Nationwide who asked us the same questions and saw the same paperwork. They put it all in the computer and told us with our deposit we could borrow nearly twice the value of the flat! We have stayed with them for the house we live in now and the various remortgaging of the flat and the house.

as above, mine was great and also no charge.
lived a few doors down from where i was renting at the time so was easy to sort stuff out. just spoken to him today as i need to get a new deal, he had a look but can't find anything to beat current lender offers so told me to just go online and apply with them as its easy enough to do.

My first and only mortgage was arranged through the husband of a very close friend, who advised me to go interest-only, and set up a series of personal pensions that would cover the, admittedly small, mortgage as I was buying my parents council house.
I feel now I was ill-advised, due to redundancy, etc, I was never able to afford to keep putting money into the pensions. I was able to pay off the mortgage, but I was royally shafted on the tax, although I did get a hefty rebate not long after. It’s just that I never built up the really substantial reserves in the pensions to retire early! And there’s no PPI-type mis-selling claim process that goes back 30 or so years.
Still, the house is mine, and it cost me £29,000 for a 30’s three bed semi, now valued at around £190,000. Not that I’m going to sell, it’s been my home for most of my life, and it’s a nice part of town to live in.
Just a shame I’ve only got half the garden the neighbours have - the council took half to build a block of flats on the site of a prefab estate.

Ours is brilliant. Made the first application a breeze and we just call him when it’s time to renew. He finds the best deal and then sorts it. Recently recommended him to my brother in law and sorted his promptly too.

Not a bad advisor but the conveyancers we got landed with when we remortgaged were bloody awful. Ended up getting a months credit on the mortgage after all their cock ups (lenders preferred conveyancer). Won't make that mistake again.

asked me to open a Credit Karma account (I already had one) and share the log-in with him, every fibre of my being said not too (I work in IT security) but I did anyway.

Er, what? That’s terrible for normal people, let alone IT professionals, let alone IT *security* professionals.

Not a bad advisor but the conveyancers we got landed with when we remortgaged were bloody awful.

They are deserving of another  moaning thread too.

I'm gutted to be having to pay £800 to one in the next couple of months.

<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">We've once had a good conveyoncer - who had the cheek to retire since we last used him.</span>

All this moaning apart, I'm still amazed at how low interest rates are. We've just got 1.19%, fixed for 5 years...crazy compared to my parents who hit nearly 10% at one point.

I work with a few, they range from excellent to useless.

If you are paying a fee you will generally get a better service, but not always.

if you don't pay a fee then the advisor is being paid by the lender by way of a procurement fee, the conveyancing company that they have a fee share agreement with, and by commission from any insurance products that they can flog you. Plus if they are the builders recommended firm they will normally be paying a big chunk of their fees back to the builder. This means they have to do volume to make it a viable business, hence you are more likely to get a poor service.

Best advice is to ask around until you find a friend who has had a good experience and go with the guy.

Surely No need to pay a mortgage advisor. They get commission for the sale. Importantly they only get the commission if the mortgage completes so it is in their interest to make that so.

I picked an online one on the basis that I’d get a few hundred quid from Quidco as cash back .
No liability for me if it fell through. And infact some of the mortgages that would have had an initial fee of i had gone direct didn’t because I was using a broker.
Having done my last mortgage direct I Was a bit worried of the service I’d get and also if the casback would work but the latter was just a nice you have. Although they were online I found the service to be fine. I did have a fair idea of what I wanted though. I won’t name them here but happy to if you pm me.

Surely No need to pay a mortgage advisor. They get commission for the sale. Importantly they only get the commission if the mortgage completes so it is in their interest to make that so.

But it's then in their interests to push you into the mortgage that nets them the highest commission, rather than the one that's best for you.

@Aidy it is a risk but if they are independent (rather than tied to a bank say) they do need to do demonstrate that the one they are recommending you for meets the needs you’ve said you have and that it is the best value (I got sent this evidence in the form of a list like you get on moneysupermarket)

Don’t forget the ones you are paying are getting the commission too unless they rebate it back to you so they have the same conflict of interest.