Remortgage agreed but two questions:

Inbetweener_2

I have a property worth about £200k and a mortgage of £160k. Have been with Topaz but with a lot of sorting my credit out over the last 4 years, I can go with Santander Fxed 2 year 3.49% - happy with that.

The broker has just informed me they have a fee of £750 whch I can add to the mortgage, can I ask a fee free broker to do this instead?

Also, the valuation is free. Can I ask for this to happen first and then commit? I ask as I am paranoid the property will be undervalued (3 properties in my street have sold for £220k in the last 2 months but I am still worried!).

If anyone can help I will be most appreciative.

Thanks

Yorkie1

Are you sure the fee relates to the broker's work? I added the mortgage product fee to my mortgage. If you add the broker's fee to the mortgage, you'll be repaying the lender and not the broker.

RedFraggle

And no they are unlikely to do the valuation before you apply for the mortgage. There would be nothing in it for them.

betmunch

what do you mean? just informed you of the fee? It should have been covered in the initial meeting, right at the beginning.

I would suggest you tell them you are not happy about the fee and ask them to waive it as you wernt made aware of it on day 1.

See what they come back with but dont proceed until you are happy

betmunch

Sorry, that is only if its the broker fee, if it is a fee to the Abbey then its just part of the product and they wouldnt have known this at the initial meeting obviously!

kingstreet

Inbetweener wrote: »

Also, the valuation is free. Can I ask for this to happen first and then commit? I ask as I am paranoid the property will be undervalued (3 properties in my street have sold for £220k in the last 2 months but I am still worried!)

The valuation follows your application and is part of the usual enquiries. If the valuation doesn't match your needs you have the right to cease the application at that point. You need to check your commitment to arrangement and broker fees in those circumstances though.

Inbetweener_2

Thanks for the replies, they did not mention any fee when I spoke to them over the phone...in fact, all they asked were the basics. They did state it was their fee. I am not too bothered about the valuation - its the fee, can I move this to another broker (a free one)?

betmunch

of course you can do what you want, if you know of a fees free broker that deals with the Abbey, then theres no reason you can put in an application with them. Personally I would ask the current broker to waive their fee first as it wasnt pointed out to you in the Initial Disclosure Document, but its up to you to do what you feel is right.