Would this encourage you to use a mortgage broker for £495?

[ineeduourhelp]

Heard good reviews about this company and they include homebuyers protection which basically means if the seller pulls out I get any money spent on solicitors and surveys refunded.

I haven't seen other brokers offering this - is this kind of insurance useful?

Just want to ensure I'm getting good value out of what I'm paying for, £495 seems to be the going rate for a mortgage broker (a good one anyway)

What do you think about the protection would it encourage you to go with a certain broker because of this?

I am never paying for a mortgage brokers service ever again as long as I live it’s just an extra layer for something to go wrong in between you and the lender. Get them to tell you what the best deal is and then go direct.

I used a broker and would use again as they organised so much for us, took a lot of stress and admin away.

The protection would be an extra bonus but I would pick the firm that felt the most responsive personally.

I went direct to the lenders. My finances are straightforward and we had a low LTV so fairly painless.

@HiveBee

I hope you work for free too?

I used L&C mortgage broker which is free but give excellent advice

Thanks all though I'm really after thoughts on this homebuyers thing as that's really what's making me veer towards one option?

Probably not, our solicitors offered that anyway. There are so many good brokers that don’t charge, there’s really no need to.

Don’t understand why anyone doesn’t use L&C to be honest (I guess unless your situation is super complicated).

I’ve always used a broker and never paid them a penny.
They get a commission on the product. My IFA is whole market and doesn’t usually need to charge a fee, they do occasionally if the commission isn’t much but I’ve had 7 products and never paid.

Because they are shite!!

@Startuplife most brokers charge

They really don’t. Certainly none I’ve come across recently and that includes smaller ones as well as L&C

No. If that kind of insurance is that important to you, you can easily take out a policy yourself for far less money (IIRC the one we bought a few years back was about £60).

I don’t get paid twice unlike mortgage brokers who will receive a fee from the lender and try and squeeze a fee from the purchaser it seems.

Surely that's "stealing" their time and services?

Also they can get different/better rates than Joie Bloggs.

Anyone can go to a comparison website for free and find the best deal.

Value or a broker is in taking care our the dealings with the bank. Would use again but never paid - they get a decent commission (over 3k on my mortgage) from the bank.

To be fair we used various brokers and went direct. Last mortgage was a bit of a nightmare.

We did significantly better off direct. Both in lending amount and interest rate.

So slightly unsure now. Always heard good things. Perhaps it’s just us.

No they don’t.

I never paid for any broker I used - they get money from the mortgage provider. Can you find out how much the insurance costs as a stand-alone? That should inform your decision.

I used a broker in Okehampton, Devon - he used all his experience and knowledge of the mortgage products, really thought outside the box, ultimately came up with an excellent solution that we'd never have worked out or accessed. Recommend him to all my friends! At times like this, it's the really clever ones like this that we need!

They caused me loads of extra stress. They kept telling me the bank statements I was using for proof of deposit were being rejected, leaving me to keep ringing the companies and asking for different versions of things. I was really stressed out about this causing the mortgage to fall through, as they kept saying it couldn't be processed without the extra information.

Then my solicitor told me she'd recieved the mortgage offer. Called L&C as I was confused about how this had happened when they had told me these documents were still outstanding. Turned out it wasn't the mortgage company requesting them at all -they were fine with what I'd sent through originally, and it was L&C who were making me jump through hoops. They hadn't updated the progress of my mortgage on the portal and had told me my mortgage was being held up by this even it was just L&C being ridiculous about the requirements. I would never use them again a) because of their excessive requirements and b) because of lying about why they were needed.

Obviously I know why proof of deposit is needed, I'm just objecting to how they kept asking for different kinds of statements for it.

That’s a common misconception only the very large brokers get preferential rates the rest of them are part of a network.

As for stealing their time, they are usually attached to an estate agent making money, its pure greed, they should be happy with been paid by the big corporate lender it’s already making a bloody fortune out of people. Dont get me started on the pressure to buy all their life insurance products, their disability insurance products and their income protection insurance products none of which pay out in the event of being needed.

Just use an independent one who isn't connected to an estate agent - problem solved!

No it wouldn't persuade me. We have used L&C mainly because they are free and recommended by MoneySavingExpert. We used them because Dh was self employed so it wasn't as easy as trawling the internet which is relatively easy anyway. Have used them for at least 15 years.

The last 2 times we have been offered really good rates through our current provider when our fixed terms were coming to an end which included earlier this year. I ran the numbers against comparison websites and it was still the best deal. Dh is now employed rather than self employed so much easier.

It does nark me that lots of brokers are paid twice, once by the mortgage provider and again by the customer.