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?

London & Country gave me some dodgy advice which could have negatively impacted my credit rating and chance of acceptance (told me to change my address on all banks, cards, contracts to somewhere I was temporarily staying with family and where I had no credit history, because they thought I should use that address on my application as it was nearer to my work and my actual permanent address was in a different town )

In the end instead of L&C I used the mortgage broker provided by my estate agent and they set me up with the same mortgage I would have applied for anyway if I had done it directly via my own building society. He submitted my application without getting my express authorisation to do so and made a few mistakes on the form. It didn't really have an impact so was fine but I was not at all impressed with the sloppiness.

When I remortgage I think I'll probably just do it myself.

I've only used L&C on a btl mortgage. These are difficult to do yourself as I think about 80% are broker only and terms and restrictions vary a lot. I thought they were great. Found me the product I wanted for a good price and were really efficient. I really liked having someone else do the paperwork. I would absolutely recommend them for anything a bit tricky where it might be difficult to do your own research.

I used L&C several times a few years ago as I had been recommended a particular broker who was excellent and I regularly recommended the company to friends and on MN. When he left we were passed onto someone else who was awful and did a really really hard sell on life insurance. We went elsewhere.

We were standard re-mortgagers - similar circumstances to blueshoes. Completed about 3 weeks ago. Have nothing but praise for them. Called when they said they would, replied to emails pretty much immediately. Offered a variety of options. Don't think I'm financially deficient, did lots of research myself and they offered us a product that wasnt available to the general public.

Wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. If you don't think a particular advisor is up to scratch, ask for your case to be transferred!

I've used them 3 times, always very pleased with them. I do think some of it may come down to the customer service rep you get. When I went to use them 2nd time they assigned me to the same rep as I had been given before but for whatever reason he wasn't returning my calls fast enough etc so I called and asked to deal with someone else and he has been great on the second and third time. Last used them 6 months ago for a remortgage.

They have been very good for me on two recent mortgages (in the last 4 weeks), would definitely recommend

Just read the financially illiterate bit I've worked for a big 4 for the last 12 years

We used them to find a first time buyer mortgage in March this year and they were OK/pretty good at first. Once we'd decided on the mortgage we got moved to a different advisor who was useless. She kept get information on the forms wrong despite repeated corrections by email and was difficult to contact. It was very frustrating and I think i won't use them again in future

Actually that's a good point ninja our original guy that looked through all the mortgages for us was brilliant, the caseworker we were then passed to, not so much.

We used them last year and found them brilliant. Will use them when we have to remortgage.

we used them in past but someone on Money Saving Expert said that if you check out Quidco or Top Cashback there was another company who provided free mortgage advice and you got cashback for using them. Never a one to look a gift horse in mouth etc.

London and Country Mortgage company have decent, efficient, polite staff who want to do the right thing. My mortgage was brokered by them five years ago and I have just spoken to them again about a new deal. Our age (60) and income severely limit available deals and they were honest enough to tell me and suggest we try to stay loyal to our current company - meaning no commission for them. I will be straight back if our existing provider can't help us. I recommend L and C a hundred per cent. And if we are lucky enough to stay with our current provider I will send the man with the Somerset drawl a bottle of champagne. And lots of referrals!

They held my hand as a nervous ftb last year. I'd happily use them again.

You can't get a Yorkshire mortgage through a broker, they have a subsidiary called Accord that deals with the Intermediary (broker) market.