Owning your own home

Our mortgage broker got paid circa £1k by the lending company which was fine, we were under the impression all fees were included. Two weeks later we were invoiced £250 for their services too which I made a bit of a scene about but was ultimately in the small print that I'd missed and paid.
The mortgage lender gave us £500 cash back that was in the small print too so karma sorted things but it's the difference in recommending the broker or not.

Sounds identical to the broker we used (and the cashback, Nationwide?). We could have gone alone, but figured as first time buyers it was worth spending a little bit for someone else to do the leg work if anything needed chasing or sorting - we did laugh as he told us him and his company was fee-free, 'but there's a £250 completion fee to pay'.

The re-mortgaging in two years on the other hand is apparently totally fee-free. We'll see when the time comes...

Finally got a fecking mortgage after nearly a month of providing more evidence. This is monumentally happy news for us. Now for the rest of the process!

Nice! Congrats!

Ah nice work dude - I'm not sure mine qualifies, so we shall see.

So we deffo have mice - what do we do, borrow a cat? Peppermint, traps etc

Re brokers.

You kind of have to use one these days. Thanks MMR etc.

There are loads however. It's still a competitive market. As above the factories like L&C do not charge a fee, but they have their preferred lenders. BUT that's driven more by ease / speed than size of commission.

The paid for brokers...ah, I just can't see the point. I've never got to the bottom of whether they can actually offer you a better product than the factories, and ultimately they too have their preferred lenders again driven by speed / ease and size of commission. So it feels like its a lose-lose for the customer.

However if you have a normal work history you can shop around the big lenders on-line to find a mortgage that you 'want', then go to the paid for broker you've identified and say 'I want this or better'. You can do the same with L&C. See what they come back with. Go with the one that provides the best deal over the life of the product.

I can't see why there would be a difference in 'leg-work' between a factory or a small shop unless you are an unusual case, i.e. self employed in which case a specialist broker might give you better service.

You kind of have to use one these days. Thanks MMR etc.

Really? I haven't for both my house purchases in the last 6 years(2010, late 2015)

Really? I haven't for both my house purchases in the last 6 years(2010, late 2015)

Kind of :) Recommendations off the back of MMR came in 2014, and basically made it burdensome for providers to deal with consumers direct.

Some providers will still sell direct but they do not make it easy and they have removed any incentive for consumers to deal with them in this way.

Remortgaging is a bit different.

Thanks mate, my work history and savings etc are extremely boring - been with the same company for 9.5 years and savings have been steady etc, so I guess I am an easy case compared to some folks here.

Our broker is walking away with £400 from us and £1,600 commission from the mortgage and its was worth every penny.

No estate agents or chain involved in our purchase. Hoping to do searches, exchange and complete in less than two weeks now we have found a lender.

What do they give you that London & Country wouldn't? If a free provider is whole of market why pay £400?

23 years of experience and a proven track record working with friends and family which is valuable if you have complicated finances, need to pitch your investment income to a lender and have a time pressure which means you would miss out on the property if your first application didn't work out.

L&C have a reputation for variable quality of brokers. If you get a good one, great. If you don't then you could end up shit creek.

It's about paying for peace of mind. I wouldn't recommend a broker to everybody but buying a house is normally stressful enough without having to worry about your paperwork not being in order.

L&C have a reputation for variable quality of brokers. If you get a good one, great. If you don't then you could end up shit creek.

It's possible if you have complicated finances but if you are fairly normal there's not a whole lot to go wrong. A computer deals with 99pc of it anyway :)

In theory 99% is computerated but in practice a good broker will earn their money by knowing which bits of lender's criteria can be bent a bit, by talking to underwriters, by working proactively and by generally being wise and experienced.

A bit like every other service job.

Surely its the computer says no aspect of it which means its a really good idea to make sure everything is in order for submission.

I'm sure most people would be fine with a free broker but for us we didn't want to take any chances so we went with somebody who we knew for certain had the experience to deliver.

Besides, if you're about to stake a large six figure sum on a property that you really want to make your home I don't see an issue with paying a few hundred for the peace of mind.

I'm also sure that not all brokers are equal. Paying doesn't mean you'll get a good service.

This. The underwriter had a few problems with our case so our broker arranged a conference call between the three of us. He dealt with things quite impressively.

I had no problem paying for our service. He's a friend of a friend, so got mates rates (£275) and it's suporting local business. He's also bloody efficient and we have a complicated property arrangement, so why not.

In theory 99% is computerated but in practice a good broker will earn their money by knowing which bits of lender's criteria can be bent a bit, by talking to underwriters, by working proactively and by generally being wise and experienced.

Only if the case demands it. If you have regular finances it will probably not, and the broker simply acts as the pre-sales and sales department of the provider as MMR pretty much requires them to do.

As before: in some cases a super-specialist fee charging pro broker will be helpful! For the rest of us they will not be worth the top-up fee because they are simply not providing any additional value beyond administerial.

Before MMR the internet nearly killed 'em off.

A bit like every other service job.

Huh. Yeah. Of course, and some services are charged at different rates than others because they are more valuable. Basic mortgage origination is pretty darn cheap once you have the hardware and the marketing end sorted out :)

I think we're agreeing. :)

Except you sometimes don't know if you're in the 1% until part way through the application.

Id also say it's more like 10% than 1% these days.

If you have 2 people's incomes, very straightforward and completely clean credit, no outgoings, then the likelihood is you can get a mortgage with pretty much anyone as long as you are within your means and just apply for the lowest rate lender you can find.

Once you get outside the norms, maternity leave, dependants, maintenance, income stretches, loans, credit cards, background properties, credit issues, age, employment status, bonuses, overtime, allowances, then as every lender treats them differently a decent broker is worth paying for.

If you have the time to do the admin yourself, by all means. If you apply for yourself, you won't have access to the lenders criteria in full, unless you speak to a full adviser for the bank, at which point the process in general will be painful and seriously delayed. If you get declined, how much time will you have to resource the market yourself and then convince your seller that you know what you are doing?
Certain lenders decline up to 3 or 4 in 10 applications, and might take up to 4 weeks to let you know this.
Mortgages can get declined for simple things like recent pay day loans, too much time spent in overdraft, loan to income ratio, being downwind of a takeaway, lease durations being too short, and all sorts of other reasons that lenders don't advertise readily.

Also realistically you get maybe up to 3-4 application attempts with lenders due to credit searches, and lenders sharing background declined information, and vendor patience.
Best to try and get it right first time.

For full disclosure, I'm a fee charging mortgage broker, and I believe that my time, expertise and efficiency is worth my fee. As many people have found, as long as you find a good broker, they can reduce stress, find solutions, speak to estate agents, solicitors on your behalf, save you time and find you a good deal. I see a lot of clients who have gone direct to lenders and after being turned down, have needed help getting things back on track ASAP.

We almost had our application declined because my wife paid off her credit card early by bank transfer two months ago. Madness.

It does sound crazy, some lenders will go by their credit report, which can be 2 months out of date, and then the weight of proof to evidence things have been cleared is the applicants.

If it still shows on your credit report as outstanding, and you have a large payment going out that can be seen on bank statements, the lender might be concerned that your outgoings are far in excess of what you have told them.

If commitments are recently paid off, which many people do before applying for a mortgage, quite a few lenders will reduce your borrowing, and won't care that you've cleared them or intend to clear them.

Spring has brought an unwelcome surprise in our new house. Clothes moths. Fuck.

Sure, thats a scenario that happened all the time.

What happened for us was that the lender saw a monthly DD payment for the full balance of the credit card and then saw a bank transfer to a credit card (didn't show account number of card on statement) so the lender decided that my wife had a second credit card that wasn't on her credit report and that she hadn't declared on the application.

Their finger was hovvering over the decline button and we had to prove beyond doubt that the bank transfer was to the same credit card that the DD payments were going to.

Balance was paid in full every month for last 3 years.