How to find a financial advisor to help with Mortgages and general mortgage advice

[JoJoMummy321]

Hi!

Can anyone tell me how best to go about finding a financial advisor to help us with mortgage choices?

Also, do they charge a fee or do they get some sort of commission from the Bank?

Sorry to sound so daft but never done this before and figure that it might be easier than going to each individual bank or building society.

We are looking for a mortgage lender who:

(a) is likely to give us permission to rent our house out if it doesn't sell next year

(b) would allow us to change to interest only if we rent it out to keep monthly outgoings down

From a little research our current lender, Nationwide would allow us to rent it but I'm not sure if they would let us move to interest only.

We have been to see Royal Bank of Scotland who it seems would let us rent it out and we would be moved on to a buy to let mortgage but keeping the current interest rate and also could change to interest only.

So Royal Bank are sounding good but would like to know which other companies might offer the same. Our Loan To Value rate is about 60%.

Hopefully a financial advisor will be able to assist but if anyone else has any advice please do let me know!

Thanks in advance for reading this long and pretty boring post!!

[Beamur]

I'd shop around and ask a few independent advisors what their terms are.
I use a chap who is independent and effectively gets his fees via commission from the products he sells, but is very open about this and has access to a wide range of products. An advisor in a bank for example, may only be able to offer products linked to that bank or it's subsidaries.

[scaryteacher]

I use L&C as my broker and they have been very good.

[cowboylover]

I agree independants are the best way forward and most of them get there fees from the companies themselves and legally they have to tell you if they are.

The best way is through recommendation I suppose, do you have any friends that have used someone good recently or what part of the country are you?

[minipie]

Another recommendation for L&C here (London and Country). A mortgage broker like L&C is the way to go as they can look through 100s of deals, especially if you have quite specific requirements. They don't charge commission and they are independent.

However, it is also worth looking at the major lenders directly (Nationwide, Halifax, etc) because sometimes they do exclusive "direct only" deals that are not available through brokers.

I would avoid using any mortgage broker/adviser attached to the estate agents you are buying through. They are supposed to be independent but there are often reports that they are not.

[Gonzo33]

Lol @ minipie

I am a mortgage consultant that wants to work at the EA. Now you've said that I might just go self employed instead.

[minipie]

Sorry Gonzo! I must admit I have been put off EA-linked advisors because of the stories about confidential information "accidentally" leaking to the EA, and because of the constant hard sell I got to use the EA's mortgage broker. But of course it's not fair to tar everyone with the same brush. Personally though, I'd be more likely to use you if you weren't EA-linked!

[Wigeon]

You can search for an Independent Financial Adviser here. They aren't tied to any particular lenders and they search the whole of the market. Usually I think you can choose to pay a fee, or they earn their money by commission from the company they recommend to you. You choose.

We recently used an IFA for the second time, initially recommended by a friend, as we are remortgaging (current deal shortly ending) and he ended up recommending that we stick with our current mortgage lender, so he didn't even get a commission! Which makes me trust him even more!

He was very good, came to our house and stayed for ages explaining all our options, very thorough, will definitely use him in future. Much much easier than doing all the research yourself (which we did the first time we took out a mortgage).

[angel1976]

We used John Charcol the last time and they are excellent. Have won awards etc. Initial consultation is free but when the deal is done, we paid a £250 fee and I think they got about £1600 from the bank (all these are clearly laid out). And they did find the best deals for us cos we researched before taking it up and the two deals we found that we thought were better had restrictions that disqualified us. Good luck!

[An0therName]

last time I got a mortage I used advice from moneysaving expert -

www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/?tab=31

got a quote from L&C but also looked around myself - - got a v good deal in my view

[mrspnut]

We used a bloke from park row last time, and he ended up not getting a penny out of us because the mortgage that was best for us was not one that paid commission.

We did however let him organise our life insurance so his time wasn't completely wasted, but I'd have been happy to pay £100 or so for good independent advice.

[Shakey1500]

We are using Cambrian Associates, so far very good. As others have said they are paid through commission by the products they sell but aren't tied to any one lender.

Sorry gonzo I've also had my fingers burnt at the hands of a broker tied to an EA!

[Gonzo33]

I think no matter where you go you are going to have good and bad consultants. I know some IFA's that have been fined huge amounts of money because they have recommended based on the fact they will get the highest commission from them. I hasten to add that I have never done that.

If I am honest the only true independant you are going to get are the people that charge you, as they will have less of a swayed interest.

In relation to EA mortgage consultants they would be breaking data protection if they revealed anything about your financial situation to the EA. The problem lies there that there is a conflict of interest.

Now you lot have made me have a rethink. Trouble is I haven't been in UK for 3 years and I need to get back into the market before I can go s/e. We will see.

[JoJoMummy321]

Thanks everyone for your comments so far. Very helpful. I did as was suggested and asked around and it turned out someone had used, and highly recommended an ifa with an office right round the corner from my work. Had an appointment this morning and she was great!!

Also going to look at L&C's website as loads of people seem to have used them. This lady was so helpful though. Very impressed.

Thanks!