Mortgage adviser wants £300

wildballoonlady

We have been using a mortgage (financial?) adviser for some months (attached to our estate agent) to come up with figures for what we can afford in new monthly mortgage payments. All his facts and figures were scribbled on paper and no facts stored on his lap top. So if we wanted fresh figures we would have to go through whole thing again. He also gave us unrealistic figures which made us think we could afford a property that in reality we would struggle with.

He said we couldn't port our present mortgage with Scottish Widows to any other property. When I phoned them myself they said they could and put it in writing. I spent a huge amount of time to them on the phone getting various illustrations. Surely the job of the adviser?

The house we now want and can afford (after having to come some way down from the earlier properties he lead us to believe we could afford) is part timber framed. Scottish Widows at this moment in time not happy to port. They will read the full structural survey we had done but could still say no.

Our mortgage adviser has found Santander to re mortgage us on this property. Because we are not having to borrow any extra to finance this move Santander will not pay the adviser his cut. He is insisting that we pay him £300 for his work (even commenting on the amount of times we've been to him in the past year).

If Scottish Widows allow us to port we apparently still have to pay him even if we turn Santander down.

Is he within his rights to ask this? All along he has maintained we don't pay him a penny. Now he claims he told us of this added charge some time ago.

ACG

What does his paperwork say? What have you signed?

All advisors charge differently, i personally only charge a fee on application - that means potentially i could have done the same work as your current advisor without being paid or expecting to be paid. So its not unrealistic that he could have spent the time doing the work and not get paid - part and parcel of the job.

However some advisors do charge for their time and would have discussed this with you upfront. If it was never discussed and you havnt signed anything, he cant just change his mind and decide he has done some work and because hes not getting anything that you have to pay for it....life doesnt work like that.

Ask him for a copy of signed paperwork where you agreed to pay him his fee.

opinions4u

He's entitled to charge you.

But you're entitled to be told of this before he lifts a finger. If that hasn't happened you don't have to pay.

So it all comes down to the paperwork. What does it say? What have you signed?

wildballoonlady

We have not, nor have we ever been asked to sign anything with him. I have dealt with him mostly initially, then my husband did. He claims he told me of a potential charge some time ago. I know he didn't and nor have I signed.

One of the reasons we had to re-visit him on more than one occasion was to sort out that we couldn't actually afford the payments on a 500k house. His figures lead us to believe originally that we could. So I was miffed to hear he'd commented on our visits to him. This was never chargeable.

How do we handle this without causing bad feeling between ourselves, the adviser and the estate agent he is attached to? The estate agent is handling our purchase and our sale.

ACG

It depends a lot on the broker and yourself. If he isnt prepared to refund it then your only option is to file a complaint.
You would have been given a document on the first meeting, it explains their fees among other things.
The back page will say what to do if you have a complaint.

VfM4meplse

One for Conrad I think - pm him if he can't be found on DT during the week.

billybear1

I would suggest you take your business elsewhere if it was me. True he may want an application fee of £300 but the service you have received so far, do you really want to proceed with him? This is really the first stage of the application and all the work that follows is what he is also earning his money for. Will you be happy with the service he offers on this side too?