new here!!!

daft-dee

hello all,
at the moment we are looking into buying our council home, and come across this company: diamond lifestyle, for the mortgage and helping us get the house, just wondering if an one have used these and could give me some advice as word of mouth is sometimes better than a look on the net, or any thing else about first time buying would be great, as im getting abit lol....

all my best dee!!

DavidHM

What's your credit rating like?

Any reason why you can't get a normal mortgage? If it's down to your credit rating then don't get stung on the interest - renting (especially a council property) might then be cheaper.

Generally most lenders do the same job - provide you with money and take back a monthly payment. All you really want is the one that does it cheaply.

If it's a company that charges you vast fees for buying the property then again (I've never been involved in a purchase direct from the council) then ask yourself why you need to pay someone thousands to deal with what should be quite simple paperwork.

You'd probably find that you'd need a solicitor in any event, or at least that a solicitor would handle all the really difficult stuff anyway, for a few hundred quid, not a few thousand.

I'm not saying not to go with these people but you need to be really clear what they are actually charging.

This may be made up of:

a. Loan arrangement fees - on a council purchase you probably don't need to be paying these, or at least not very much - a few hundred at most to the lender - and as ever, shop around;

b. Administration fees - again, is there any of this that you can do yourself? How much are they?

c. Conveyancing fees - shouldn't be more than about £600;

d. Interest - make sure you know what the APR is.

If you don't understand, ask on here and/or get proper legal advice with a clear charging structure as it's likely to be cheaper in the long run. If they won't answer your questions - walk away.

AndrewSmith

Well,

Their website states that you will be paying them a typical fee of £2995 for the pleasure of them arranging your mortgage for you. They say that it is an all inclusive fee for the legal and survey costs etc but you would be better to source quotes for these things separately as you would by taking advice from a mainstream broker.

Don't forget that they receive a commission from the lender as well.

There is absolutely no reason at all to be paying this level of fees to arrange a Right to Buy mortgage. Any reasonably experienced mortgage broker can do exactly the same and have access to, usually, a far greater range of lenders and products. Also most brokers charge little or no fees for their work.

Don't use 'so called specialists' who charge large fees in this way when there are far better and less expensive options for you.

daft-dee

thank you both for your reply's that was what i was thinking, am im paying more than i need to be, i guess im just a little worried about how to get a there on my own but your both right need to get legal advice and shop around ect...

once again thanks
from dee

DavidHM

Their typical APR is 8.4%.

That means roughly £80 per month extra compared to the best rate on a £70,000 mortgage on top of their fee (which is about £2,000 more than you probably need to be paying). Over 25 years that's £24,000 - or to put it another way, five years off your mortgage.

Obviously to get the best rate you would need a good credit history but if you see an independent broker, you'll probably find you can do better than that.