Used L&C on MSE advice which cost £300 more than going direct to Nationwide

Mary_Physio

On MSE's advice I arranged my mortgage through London & Country. I am porting my existing mortgage (with Nationwide) and topping up with a second bit of mortgage from Nationwide.

L & C told me that my only option was to go with Nationwide because of porting my existing mortgage. And yet they didn't tell me at that point (i.e. before I had paid the £514 homebuyer survey / arrangement fee) that if I got it directly from Nationwide I would [obviously] be able to get the same rate + £300 cashback.

I'm so upset. Every penny counts. MSE, what should I do? I haven't raised this with L & C yet. And also, should you change your advice for people if they can only use one provider, don't go through L & C?????

RicRichRichie

I could be wrong but I don't believe that MSE give financial advice.

opinions4u

You didn't read the whole article. The paragraph below being relevant to you.

A few lenders e.g. Nationwide, Halifax, now put some deals through brokers and some only direct, just to show there’s nothing like keeping things simple!

This in itself isn’t that new, but a recent trend is that the direct deals
can be much more competitive (though not always!). Usefully, Moneyfacts and the Money Advice Service mortgage searches, include most branch-only direct deals from lenders in their tables, so are great starting points to see if you can beat the broker deals.

Trying_to_be_good

You wanted to port your mortgage, so this meant sticking with Nationwide. Did you then do your own research about what was available for the top-up additional borrowing, or did L&C do that for you? You could easily have done that yourself, if you felt confident, or seen a Nationwide person.

You chose not to, and stuck with L&C who could have recommended a deal with someone else. This was your choice. Time to move on and enjoy living in your new house, chalking this one up to experience.

ACG

I might be wrong but you sought advice, you were given advice, so you then have to pay for the advice.

So long as they have done the job to the best of their ability then im sure the fee will stand.

Not all deals are available to all brokers and some deals are not available to brokers at all.

dunstonh

I'm so upset. Every penny counts. MSE, what should I do? I haven't raised this with L & C yet. And also, should you change your advice for people if they can only use one provider, don't go through L & C?????

MSE doesnt give advice. It offers opinion. There has been debate before in this forum that MSE gives the wrong opinion as it doesnt mention independent mortgage advice. Yet that is very often so much better than the commission option that MSE promotes.

And yet they didn't tell me at that point (i.e. before I had paid the £514 homebuyer survey / arrangement fee) that if I got it directly from Nationwide I would [obviously] be able to get the same rate + £300 cashback.

They wouldnt do and have no requirement to do so. L&C are a whole of market mortgage broker that uses commission only deals. If you wanted independent advice then you should have used an independent.

L&C are fine at what they do within their remit. I don't agree with the promotion that MSE give them but I understand from past comments that MSE will often only mention companies that it knows have the capacity to deal with the large volumes that being mentioned on this site will generate. Most independents are small local firms that could not handle that volume. However, there ought to be some reference to them in the article to allow people to check their local independents.

silvercar

What L & C did, I assume, was compare sticking with Nationwide (porting + new) and taking a whole new mortgage deal elsewhere. Their conclusion was that you were better off staying with nationwide. That is the advice that you have paid for. Had you stuck with nationwide yourself, you wouldn't have known that that was your cheapest option.

Having used L&C to work out that nationwide was cheapest and then arranging it yourself is an option, but that like not paying someone for work they have done. Perfectly legal and possible, but it's debatable whether the service you got from L& C was to find you a different deal or to find you the best deal. In your case the best deal was staying with Nationwide.