Yet another broker question - what else should a broker be doing for me?

holbob

Maybe a strange question, but what else should a broker be doing for us than just searching a market for deals. We went to see an estate agent in house "financial advisor" this week and she didn't seem to do anything other than we can do ourselves. She charges £300 which is fine if the hassle is taken out of getting a mortgage - but it appears getting a solicitor, contacting a solicitor, making offers on the house have to be done by ourselves - I assumed this would be done by a broker as part of the fee. She was whole of market and searched plenty of deals for us, and showed us these deals. But she didn't actually recommend any for us - just let us see them. Then did a "soft footprint" application with one lender, and now we have the signed mortgage offer to use when viewing properties. But it appears she doesn't do much else other than get us the mortgage. Is that all a broker does? Our circumstances are very basic and we have a high ratio deposit.

Senior_Paper_Monitor

Get another broker would be my comment - should be 'over you like a rash' to see how she can help (let alone arranging a solicitor for you - for she would probably earn a referral fee).

Recommending, arranging and liaising with solicitors, valuers, surveyors, electricians, arborists, kitchen designers et al is part of the job (some of which we get paid for, some of which we don't) - I thought anyone who didn't was amongst the 20,000 brokers who have left the industry in the last three years !

ACG

You think a solicitor will be included for £300?
Solicitors alone can charge more than that.

Your advisor probably isnt that fussed. She works in an estate agents. Appointments are easy to come by.

As for what advisors do it varies to some extent on the person, like any occupation you have good people and lazy people.
But they search for the mortgage, get all the paperwork together in one go, deal with the solicitor, lender and yourself and estate agents, they check that you are covered should you be unable to work/become ill, keep you updated of where it is upto what should happen next and how long it will take.

betmunch

Sounds like shes got lazy to me.

A good Mortgage Broker will find you the best mortgage for your circumstances.
Apply for the mortgage for you and package up the relevant details the lender requires and send them off.
Will chase the mortgage lender regularly and keep you up dated with the progress.
Fix any problems that arise with the application - the way banks are at the moment this is a BIG thing
Discuss your needs and arrange suitable protection for your mortgage and personal circumstances.
When buying a house, should be able to recommend a solicitor, posibly even get a price for you from them.
I would make offers on your behalf, in fact I enjoy that part a lot!

This is just things of the top of my head, if I had to put down all the stuff I do for my clients in detail it would go a lot longer than these few lines. I hope I have devalued myself by being quick here!

Get to a proper mortgage broker that isnt based in the EA to maximum protection from the EA tricks!

holbob

ACG wrote: »

You think a solicitor will be included for £300?
Solicitors alone can charge more than that.

That wasn't what I was asking - I asked if a broker would deal/contact the solicitor for us. I'm not looking for something for nothing.

Senior_Paper_Monitor

No ACG - the OP doesn't think the solicitor should/was included in the fee.

He appears to be a client willing to pay a professional a fee to do a job - but he expects the professional to work for it (and quite rightly so).

The solicitor issue is ludicrous - any broker has access to half a dozen conveyancer instruction systems that provide instant written quotes and pay what can be healthy commissions (personally we work with one firm of solicitors with whom we have worked for over 5 years based on service, know their staff and procedures inside out and can quote on their behalf - we get a small introducers fee but frankly value the efficiency and no nonsense servoice higher than the fee. which we could increase elsewhere or frankly on our current arrangement ... this is all part of the service a client should expect).

If the adviser can't show enthuusiasm to do something that easy which will even money - would a client be best served in other areas ?


.... ah, the OP beat me to it !

ACG

Sorry i misunderstood.

But as you can see from the other posts the broker you have sounds lazy, which tends to happen. Theyre on a wage, have appointments on tap and can afford to be lazy, theyre not trying to keep the relationship going as they know there wont be a shortage of business.

Leon_W

Excuse me but how do you all come to the assumption that she is lazy ?

Seems like a typical first appointment to me. The OP hasn't found a house so no recommendation, fair enough. She seems to have narrowed down the mortgage options a bit and got an AIP so the OP knows their budget, good. Advised them of the fee if they would like to use her, great.

What more would you like for nothing ?

As brokers we know the hard work starts when the application has to be packaged and submitted. Perhaps, at worse, she didn't explain the procedure properly, but lazy ? Come on.