Mortgage advisers: What's wrong with London & Country?

[SnowBells]

I had a thread here the other week asking for recommendations on mortgage brokers. A lot of people recommended London & Country (L&C).

However, recent comments on other threads did not seem so positive about L&C. Why?

And which mortgage advisers would you recommend instead?

[Nojustalurker]

I made a not positive comment for London and country but I did not mean they are bad.

We wanted a 5 yr fixed term and then after 5 yrs we will renegotiate our mortgage,probably with another provider. L and c work out the most economic over the whole of your mortgage term, for us 25 years. As we are looking to change after 5 years the most economic for 5 years is different to the most economic after 25 years. The 25 year prediction is calculated on the their current apr which will change so even if bank a is cheaper now, after your 5 year fixed term bank b could be cheaper in the long run.

We used l and c for ball park figures and then looked ourselves using comparison websites.

[Netguru]

L&C are a free mortgage brokers. Nothing is of course really free. They are paid by the mortgage provider.

If they can offer you the rate you can get elsewhere go with them. They chased through a very difficult mortgage for me (over half a million on a bridge) and just secured a mortgage for my first time buyer son at half a per cent less that he could have got direct.

Happily recommend just check whatever you are offered on the open market before you accept.

[Nojustalurker]

Just to clarify if l and c had come up with the best deal for us we would have arranged our mortgage through us.

[NotJustACigar]

L&C were our brokers and they were absolutely rubbish. They got so many things wrong on the application that I had to correct with the mortgage company it was ridiculous. And they are so busy that its just about impossible to get through to an advisor to check the status of your application, etc.

We should never have been submitted to the lender that submitted us to but that lender is the one that offers the most commission so as if by coincidence that's who they selected for us. Plus they lied so many times - about whether they had submitted all or paperwork, whether they had checked with the lender about things, etc. I don't trust them at all and would never, ever go through the immense stress of sorting out the mess they made ever again.

[MichaelFinnigan]

I've used them twice and found them to be excellent. The first time I had time on my hands and did my own searches, and couldn't better what they'd come up with. The second time I just didn't gave time for anything, them doing the application and telling me who needed what when was an easy route to take

[MummytoMog]

I found them brilliant. Negotiated a great rate on a tricky remortgage, then negotiated again to avoid a massive retention and chased regularly when I needed them to. Made sure all our forms and tax paperwork was correct. I love them and recommend them to everyone. I never had a problem getting through to my adviser or to my case worker.

[NotJustACigar]

Those who recommend them - when did you use them? Because we used them last month and think part of the problem is that they are unable to cope with the volume of mortgages going through at the moment. Either that or they have gone seriously downhill for other reasons.

I suppose also its the luck of the draw with their massive call centre which advisor you get and how well they deal with your case. We were extremely unlucky and would never take that chance again.

[ContentedSidewinder]

Another vote for L&C. Used them lots, last time was 2 years ago though.

Notjust they always asked us what our priorities were, ie fixed to know what you are paying or to beat the market and long term what were we looking to do.

Maybe you just got one bad advisor. They are still recommended by MoneySavingExpert so they must be decent.

[blueshoes]

Just spoke to one of L&C's advisors. They said they based on my criteria they would only recommend ONE option, which I found rather restrictive because I just wanted to get quotes for the cheapest fixed, cheapest float, cheapest offset etc. They could not do that. They could give me one quote at a time based on what they deemed to be my rigid criteria.

L&C are not "whole of market". For example, Yorkshire building society have one of the best quotes on moneysupermarket right now but L&C do not recommend their mortgages.

I think L&C's approach might work for the financially challenged (who, fair enough, are not used to working out the differences between different products in terms of rates, repayment amount, arrangement fees, discount periods and overpayments) and just want one answer. But their approach is slightly frustrating for a seasoned mortgage refinancier like I am.

It could be that this is due to the Mortgage Market Review that will come into effect on the 26th of this month. Annoying to be treated like a financial illiterate.

[plus3]

Don't know - they work really well for us.

[plus3]

And I don't consider myself challenged in any way....

[GiraffesAndButterflies]

I think they are whole of market blueshoes. That's one reason Martin Lewis recommends them.

We completed about a month ago, for whoever asked about timings, they'd been great throughout.

[Brugmansia]

We used them last year on a tricky remortgage and found them good. We went direct to a particular advisor though a colleague recommended which may have helped.

[blueshoes]

Giraffes, Yorkshire building society had some amazing rates for 2 y fixes. When I pointed out to the L&C advisor that their best rate was higher than Yorkshire's, they said they were not in a position to recommend Yorkshire mortgages. The advisor made it clear to me from the outset, quite apart from what I have just said, they are not whole market.

[Fermin]

We completed three weeks ago. Found L&C to be absolutely fantastic from start to finish. They called when they said they were going to, were very clear about everything we needed to provide and found us a brilliant deal. We had a lot of debt that we needed to pay off on completion so our broker only bothered with lenders that would accept this situation. For the shopping around stage he was quite conservative with the criteria he put in for us (eg if our annual bonus varied each year, he put in lowest figure, inflated our childcare costs slightly etc). This was to ensure that whoever accepted us on that criteria was likely to sail us through the underwriting stage upon full application. The day our application was approved, the broker called us personally to tell us 10 minutes before we received the automated text from the lender. They have also said they will automatically contact us before our current deal is up to see if we want to shop around for something better.

All that said we tried to use them three years ago and weren't that impressed then. The broker we got didn't seem that clued up and couldn't find us a deal that bettered the first one we had tried ourselves. So I think it does just depend on the broker who answers the phone to you. If you want me to PM the direct details of our most recent broker then let me know.

[blueshoes]

My L&C advisor said she would call me at 9am this morning. She did not and I emailed her at 9.15 enquiring. She said she was unexpectedly out of the office today and would contact me when she gets back in. She did not apologise for cancelling beforehand or when she would get in touch ...

I think she knows that she cannot match moneysupermarket for my (favourable) circumstances so has lost interest ...

[blueshoes]

She did not apologise for not cancelling beforehand

[Fermin]

There are a very small handful of lenders that don't accept applications via intermediaries, I believe Yorkshire Building Society are one of them.

[MummytoMog]

"seasoned mortgage refinancier"

Does that mean those of us who have only remortgaged five times are unseasoned? Or financially illiterate ;)

I don't think anyone could have done better for us, and I spent a lot of time calling round. OH is self employed and we were funding a large extension, in two parts. L and C found us a deal which saved us 250 a month on our repayments - the difference between building the extension and not for us.

[blueshoes]

Mummytomog, as your circumstances are tricky (self-employed and funding an extension), that is where a broker can come in useful.

In my circumstances (standard remortgage, 2 ft salaried employees with less than 50% LTV), there is no point going through L&C or any broker because all the research I need to do and all the best rates can be found on moneysupermarket.

L&C accepted that in my circumstances, I will pretty much get the best rate of any mortgage provider. How L&C does not suit my needs is because I just wanted them to quote me the lowest rate for fixed, for floating and for offset for 2-5 years, but they insisted on fixing my criteria at the outset (i.e. they will only quote me for a 5y fix), deeming my "needs" to be the cheapest mortgage for a 5y fix. When I asked them to quote me the rate for a 2y fix, they said that I had to make another appointment because my "needs" had changed and so on if I wanted a quote for a 5y tracker ...

Also, in their recommendation, the L&C broker did not inform me what the arrangement fee for that product was. I had to ask them for it. How they explained it what they they added the arrangement fee to the mortgage amount and said it is reflected in the increased monthly instalment. That is slightly misleading because it makes more sense for the arrangement fee to be spread out over the discount period (because most people would remortgage when the discount period ends) rather than over the entire term, which is what L&C were effectively doing.

Fermin, whilst I accept that it is only a small number of mortgage providers such as Yorkshire don't use intermediaries like L&C, that leaves a gaping hole in the market because the best rates for me 2 years ago (when I last looked) and now (remortgage) are still with Yorkshire!

[HollyBrrr]

H and I are both self employed so we went to L&C as they'd been recommended by another self employed friend. They came back to us with one possibility that was clearly based on them misunderstanding my job and the way I get paid. We weren't impressed and went with Virgin Money in the end, who by and large have been pretty good.

[ListWriter]

Mummytomog, that's exactly what we're looking to do at the end of the year. We're both self-employed. Any chance you could PM me the name of your broker?

[member]

We used them 3 years ago when we bought current house & again just recently when our 3 year fixed came to an end. Have no complaints. There were a couple of little mistakes on one form, understandable when dealing over the phone & easy to correct.

[Mythbeater]

That is incorrect they work out the cost over the length of time you know what your rate will be, my advisor told me you don't know what the variable rate will be and don't want to spend any time on it so the svr and the apr is pointless

[Mythbeater]

Blue shoes,

The Fca states they have to offer advice and not options, they are advisers and not order takers, and will provide you with a recommendation based on your needs, If you believe you know what is best then why use them in the first place? Like you said go on money supermarket and apply directly, but then you have to do all the legwork.