Free re/mortgage advice

rhyb

Hi

I have read on here and elsewhere that there are very good free mortgage advisers around which you can only contact by telephone.

Does anyone know of an alternative method of contact for these telephone only advisers such as an email address for those of us who for whatever reason can not use a telephone?

I ask because I am deaf and need to remortgage soon.

Any information / suggestions welcome.

Thanks

R

ACG

There are telephone based brokers and brokers you can meet face to face who do not charge a fee. Under the circumstances i would probably try to find a face to face one, some do home visits too.

Have a look on google for fee free brokers in your area.

Caladan

I think it's actually against the forum rules to recommend a particular broker (presumably because it could be that broker in disguise?)

I also believe can pass your enquiry on to a comparison website and they may sell the information to local brokers in your area too, in which case they'll contact you and you can choose who you want to use.

I'm not sure how that works for Mortgages, but I know a local IFA who receives leads from comparison websites which works in that way.

rhyb

Thanks both for your replies,

I just wanted to ask to clarify if the telephone only advisers have to provide reasonable adjustments under the equality act 2010 and make their service fully accessible to deaf people by providing an email address and not only a phone number.

I will find out. :-)

Thanks

ACG

I would be very reluctant to deal with someone by email only.

The financial services is heavily regulated and in order for me to do business with someone i have to "know your customer" - can i really confirm i do having never met nor spoken to my client?

I understand you have a very valid reason but having never met or spoken to you, i have no way of confirming that is the case. I think any broker would be in a strong position to counter your claim if you were to ever take it to court.

Im not trying to get into a debate/argument about this, but at the same time i do think it would help if you could see this from a brokers perspective so you can understand what constraints they have and accept there may have to be some give and take as it is a slightly out of the norm scenario.

kingstreet

We do not work on a non-face to face basis. We do that because of the increased risk of fraud and money laundering. We confine ourselves to our little corner of the West Midlands as a result.

However, we are happy to conduct all the communication by email as long as we hold one face to face meeting where we obtain the necessary supporting documentation and the signing of the documentation.

On the fee-free question. It depends on the mortgage amount for many of us. A £50,000 mortgage would earn commission of about £150 and that could not be done fee-free. A mortgage of £200,000 would see commission of £600 and that may be sufficient for many brokers to work on a fee-free basis.