Mortgage Broker

nayfeee

Hello everyone,

I have been in discussion with a couple of mortgage brokers and have a couple of questions:

Firstly, how much should we expect to pay in fees? I know this is an extremely vague question as each case is different. Adverse credit so I'm going to assume more than standard. As an example one broker has said they would use a "mortgage packager" for our particular case and that the total fees will be around £1,000 but possibly more (I think it could be up to 1% of amount borrowed + packager fee + admin fee) - is this about right?

And- Is there anywhere that I can read reviews or find details for brokers that people recommend?

I'd like to have a look at our options and find one that can help us without breaking the bank too much.

Thanks in advance everbody.

ACG

Depending on the adverse £1k seems about right with packager fees on top.

Personally I am not a huge fan of packagers, I think a lot of what they do can be done without them (although there are exceptions).

With regards to reviews, it varies. Some brokers will not have any (although that does not mean they are bad), I personally have mine on facebook and my website, I have seen other brokers use trustpilot - so those could be places to look?

Make sure any fees to the broker are only chargeable on offer/completion. Packager fees unfortunately are usually payable on application.

nayfeee

Thank you ACG.

The particular broker I spoke to about this said that the fees were payable on application. He said that he would sort out the AIP and then when once we had found a property the fees would be payable to application. Is that not the norm? I was concerned about that as what if, for any reason, the mortgage application declined at that stage (is that a possibility?)

ACG

An AIP is not really worth the paper its printed on, more so with lenders who only do soft footprint credit checks.

So paying on application is a risk. I can understand why brokers charge on application as thats when all of the work starts, but from a customers point of view you could end up paying a grand and get nothing more than an AIP.

myright

What's a packager and AIP? Why would they take these out ?

csgohan4

ACG wrote: »

An AIP is not really worth the paper its printed on, more so with lenders who only do soft footprint credit checks.

So paying on application is a risk. I can understand why brokers charge on application as thats when all of the work starts, but from a customers point of view you could end up paying a grand and get nothing more than an AIP.

My broker was good and I only paid when I actually got a mortgage. No mortgage no fee. Hence that much more incentive for the broker to work for me and not volume stacking some free Brokers do.

kirtsypoos

I am currently using a broker for our mortgage and our fee is payable on completion - the rate was advertised at 1% however the broker has agreed to do it for 0.5%.

We don't have adverse credit a such, but I do have a high debt to income ratio, which is why we went via a broker.

amnblog

A packager is an administration firm contracted to a specialist lender to put together mortgage cases (package) for their consideration.


They are not regulated businesses and cannot give advice to a client.


Experienced mortgage brokers will normally only use them if they are the only route to access a particular lender's products.


Inexperienced brokers will refer to them as a panacea if they have no idea how to handle a tricky case.


Having a packager in the chain increases administration costs.