Mortgage broker - what for?

[TheyCallMeMellowYellow]

What exactly does a mortgage broker do?
I understand they will deal with the mortgage application and find us the best deal... but then what? Once the mortgage is approved, is that their job done? Do they deal with the exchange etc? Or is that purely down to the solicitors?
Does the mortgage broker have any contact with the solicitors?

Currently our mortgage broker is being excellent. Obviously found us a mortgage and some life insurances we asked him to find.
Now we’re coming down to the wire and have been desperate to exchange for the past two weeks. Our mortgage broker has been on the phone to the solicitor every other day to hassle them and chivvy them along, then phoning me straight away with updates. Just feels like an extra person on our side

The mortgage broker is there to identify the best mortgage product for your circumstances, deal with the mortgage application then liaise with the lender until a mortgage offer is issued.

The solicitor deals with all of the legal conveyancing part of the purchase, include exchange of contracts.

There is very little (sometimes none) contact between broker and solicitor.

See, I'm confused. Our broker recommended Beaumont Legal to use as our solicitors.
I'm nervous after reading some pretty poor reviews online of them.
But I guess I wouldn't feel so nervous if it was the broker that was dealing with them... if that makes sense?
Our broker has been fabulous so far.. it's just the solicitor thing I'm unsure about

The solicitors have to be on the mortgage company’s approved list, but it’s not a list of one - you can use another one if you like.
The brokers I’ve dealt with didn’t have a lot to do with the process after I got the mortgage approved, but I’ve always used my own solicitor. That’s their main job - get the best mortgage to suit you then the solicitor does the rest.

Mines been really helpful. And found me a good deal. But the fee is £500 so I won't be using one next time!

@TheyCallMeMellowYellow

Ask your broker if they will receive a referral fee from Beaumont Legal.

I suspect I know the answer!!

But the fee is £500 so I won't be using one next time!

What if the good deal they've found you saves more than £500?

I wouldn't have been without mine - she did everything from finding the mortgage, chasing all the solicitors, explaining everything as we went along. She has now remortgaged us twice and found us excellent deals, some of which were not available when we searched.
Her company also sorted all of our life insurances and wrote our wills!
They basically took a lot of the hassle out of the process - me and DH both work full time and have two young children - she made it relatively easy!

A good one is worth their weight in gold.

Personally, I'd never use a solicitor recommended by anyone else involved in the house buying/selling process. Too much scope for recommendations made according to the highest "finders fee" or worse if there's anything dodgy going on.

I want to choose my own from the open market and make my own decisions. I want to talk to the solicitor before I make any appointments, not rely on others and their preferences.

A lot of people got badly conned in foreign holiday apartment scams by using solicitors recommended by estate agents who "looked the other way" when it came to checking the bona fide of the land owner's credentials.

A few years ago, I bought a small office through my pension fund and used the solicitors recommended by the pension fund as their charges were less for using their "tame" solicitor (as they claimed they knew the process) and told me it would all be done and dusted far quicker than using a solicitor who wasn't au fait with the pension fund documentation etc. I fell for it. Never again, the firm of solicitors were useless and it took over six months to do the conveyancing - their first draft of the contract was riddled with mistakes.

If you're using Beaumont Legal - look out for the anti fraud restriction they apply.
I think it's £150 + VAT. They make it an opt out service rather than selling it as an add on.

If you don't opt out, every time you remortgage/make any amendments you have to go through an extra level of ID/security checks which can cost £50-£100

We found this out the hard way!
BL now charging us £150 + VAT to remove it

Obviously your choice if you want it, just paying it forward and making you aware

I find them quite overrated tbh and if you have a bad one it really causes trouble. If you have a very straightforward financial situation it's pretty easy to shop around yourself, gone are the days they can get you a better rate. We've gone through a broker 4 times and not one of them could offer us anything better than what the provider themselves could. The most straightforward mortgages for me were the ones where we applied directly ourselves, I found the broker to be an irritating middle woman at one point when I just wanted to talk to the bank myself.

Actually ours were brilliant (and we didn't pay their fees - Barratt homes did as we did a part exchange) - they dealt with the lender and proved particularly invaluable when our mortgage was withdrawn 24 hours before completion (long story - but they managed to get the offer back) I suspect without their assistance we would have been stuffed.
Having said that, we didnt use one for our first house and had no issues progressing.

Ours was great - chased the solicitors when delays happened, and also chased the vendor (via the estate agent) when delays came from our end!

Well worth the £500 fee - we got that in cashback from the lender anyway so it cancelled out.

If you have a very straightforward financial situation it's pretty easy to shop around yourself

Yes, but more and more people can't "tick the boxes" of the online/High street providers, so waste loads of time making applications only for them to be rejected.

There are more and more self employed, contractors, freelancers, zero-hour contract workers, those on benefits, those reliant on property income, those with sporadic work histories, etc., who won't get anywhere randomly applying for the popular lenders. They need a broker who knows the market and knows which lenders are sympathetic to each kind of "problem".

I despair with the likes of Halifax, Virgin, etc., when a client of mine (usually limited company freelancer) applies directly for a mortgage. Always the same, they don't understand the model so send inappropriate questionnaires, make the client jump through hoops, and then reject anyway.

if you have a bad one it really causes trouble

You can say that about any service provider.

Oh interesting that you pay a fee there. We don't pay our broker - he gets paid by the lender that we end up with (but this is not Uk).

He has connections and relationships with lenders that enable him to get better rates than we'd be able to.

Oh interesting that you pay a fee there. We don't pay our broker - he gets paid by the lender that we end up with

we are in the Uk and we didn't pay our broker either, he earns commission from the lender as you say, the ones who charge will still earn commission AFAIK. I would never pay a mortgage broker.

We are not paying our mortgage broker, they get paid through the mortgage provider. He seems pretty on the ball tbh. I'm not sure I would be able to work as quickly as him... as a FTB, this is all very new to me.

I'm still unsure about the solicitor side of things... do I risk going with Beaumont Legal? 😬
I've never needed a solicitor before so I have no idea where to start other than google 🤷‍♀️

@dirtyfries thanks for the info! How do I find out if they charge me for the anti fraud thingy?
I've been sent something from 'SortRefer'.. is that something to do with it?
Why are they involved in remortgaging etc? Can't you just change your solicitor at any time? Or that a clause in their contract?

Exactly - I’ve had three mortgages through mine and never paid her.

She has a direct telephone line to the people that matter- so speaks to someone with an actual name (!). She also can talk to them and know before applying if we are likely to get that mortgage. As above we don’t ‘fit the boxes’ even though we have really good credit ratings because we run own business. She did life insurance for us too - also in unusual circumstances. Considering we don’t pay her and that we likely get the best deals it’s a total no brainer.

If they’re paid by a mortgage lender wouldn’t that mean they’re not strictly independent?

I think they can be useful if your situation is not straightforward (eg self employed) but if you have a good credit rating and employment history I’d also look at doing it yourself (I found a better deal than my mortgage broker did so ditched them and went it alone).

We used a mortgage broker when we bought our house - we started the application by ourselves but then they started wanting extra bits of documentation and with me being at work I kept missing their calls. With a mortgage broker they liase with the bank and could then call us at a convenient time to let us know what extra bank statements etc we needed to get hold of. They also had a direct line to the building society so could find out for us why they needed something, which sometimes helped us work out exactly which bit of paperwork to send them. It didn't cost us anything (paid on commission) so was definitely worth it.

However, I'd never again use a solicitor recommended by someone probably paid a referral fee - and wouldn't touch one with bad online reviews. We risked it once on what should have been something simple (adding DP to the deeds and mortgage) and they were awful - ridiculously slow and unresponsive. We've since used someone local (contact 3-4 local firms for quotes), ask around for recommendations, look online for reviews. It makes the identity verification easier as you just pop originals to their office, and if you do hit snags you can have a face to face meeting which is much better than a phone call for resolving things.

Do not use Beaumont legal. We had a terrible experience

I'm currently using a mortgage broker and she's honestly been like an angel guiding us through the house buying process which, as first time buyers, is confusing to us.

I had actually filled in a few contact pages on different broker websites and I literally thank my lucky stars every day that she was the one that called me back first! I remember when she spent hours on the phone with me one day because I had screenshotted the statements and tax returns for my husband and I instead of downloading them. She stayed on the phone and talked me through how to download the pdf files and then we just chatted while she patiently waited while I did the rest. Once it was done, she went through every single form I had completed and just explained it all and then filled in the questions I had missed. When the mortgage offer came, again, she rang and read it to us (while we were reading it at the same time) and then explained each part in detail. Also, this is strange, but her voice is just so calming! It's like one of those voices you'd hear on the calm app to help you sleep! She just makes it all so easy, really knows her stuff and is well worth the £500. Am I allowed to name her on here? I'd recommend her to everyone! She works for HD Consultants.

She also recommended our solicitor to us. The estate agent had recommended a solicitor to us and when I got a quote for £2300 from them I went straight to Jenny and asked if that seemed expensive. She honestly said that in her opinion it was on the high side and told us to shop around OR she could recommend one. Because I didnt want to wait around for more quotes I asked her to pass on my details to her solicitors and they got back to me with a quote for around £1200 which we went with.

She also found us a really good mortgage which we were struggling to find as I only have 2 years of tax returns being self employed but the first one is awful where as the latest one is good. However sending two over is usually compulsary but having that first awful 'just getting started in business' one ruined our chances basically. We'd obviously completed mortgage calculators with different banks but she informed us we could afford to borrow more than the mortgage calculator results and it worked out cheaper than we thought monthly and we get £1000 cashback when we complete (which we'll be using to pay the solicitors with).