Owning your own home

Hold up WHUT?

You are going with a tied Mortgage Broker, who will be on a sweet sweet commission for only offering the mortgages of the lender he is tied to... AND he is charging you a fee?

Bit iffy.

He's not tied to a lender, he's part of a financial advice group with a large panel of providers. If he was tied to one I wouldn't be interested, but as I said, he has been recommended by multiple work colleagues and personal recommendations are worth a lot.