remortaging-confused :(

hotcookie101

Hi, I hope someone is able to help me-am getting a bit ofa stresshead about remortaging... my fixed rate (4.79) with scot widows is up at the end of may, so am looking to remortage. Spoke to advisor at L&C today, and they recommended a 3 year fixed with chelt&glouc at 5.89, with a booking fee of 99, and arrangement fee of 999 with free valuation and legal fees.
Looking at HSBC, I can get their fixed rate matcher with a fee of 1299-would I then have to pay legal fees and valuation on top of this? (they say that they have a Mortgage transfer deal which pays for everything but I cant see that they do that for the matcher-does anyone know?) I rang them to find out but was told I have to ring back after 21st april. Some of their other deals seem like a better option than the C&G one that the advisor gave me.
Am I looking at this too basically? Does anyone know if HSBC do pay for everything with remorgages? Even if they dont pay on the rate matcher-their 3 year fixed has a booking fee of 499 and a rate of 5.77, and it says no switching fees for existing mortgage customers-surely this is better than the above?
Please help-I have steam coming out of my ears when I try to think of all this :eek:
thanks

Gorgeous_George

I'd need to know how much you are borrowing to work out which I think is best. Try this if you have Excel.

GG

jediknightwarrior

Hi, In your shoes I would have a look at the 3rd paragraph here and then go back to your L&C adviser and ask if there is any reason why you do not qualify for the 5.54% or 5.69% 3 year fixed rates found on the C&G website here.

Tiddler_2

The reason is that those deals are only available if the customer applies directly with C&G online.

The same reason that they haven't recommended the HSBC deals is that they can't arrange those deals

I know they make the "we'll recommend a mortgage even if we don't get paid for it" but at the end of the day, do you expect to get paid for going to work?

hotcookie101

hi, I have just over 116k outstanding over 23 years. house is worth 180k(hopefully!)

hotcookie101

to be honest the guy was very nice and said that if hsbc deal was better i should take it-does anyone know if they offer their free mortgage moving with it? it just seems that there are a lot of deals out there that seem better than the one he reccomended

jediknightwarrior

Without looking to see if there are any other 3 year fixed rates...

Just using the 5.54% above, on interest only for ease of calc, you'll pay £1218 more on the scheme recommended by L&C. Not what I would call free advice.

No I don't expect them to work for nothing but then neither do I expect for them to claim that they do.

I really can not see how this fits in with "Treating Customer Fairly" and this will give the industry a bad name.

It must just be me. If somebody can please help me understand this better please let me know.

jediknightwarrior

PS. Just in case anybody is wondering, I am not liked to the op in any way.

Tiddler_2

Most mortgage brokers will use a sourcing system that tells them which are the best deals available to them.

The "available to them" is the vital bit, and that is what they would be judged on in terms of Treating Customers Fairly. If the mortgage companies made all deals available to to the brokers, then everyone would benefit, customers, brokers and the lenders.

The FSA want customers to get clear, professional advice when arranging mortgages but let lenders offer these deals with no advice at all.

It's a similar argument with the Whole of Market confusion. Most people think Whole of Market means you can offer all mortgage companies deals, but you could have a panel of a few lenders and still be classed as whole of market.

MarkyMarkD

Tiddler wrote: »

If the mortgage companies made all deals available to to the brokers, then everyone would benefit, customers, brokers and the lenders.

That's a very naive statement.

The reason that lenders do deals which are not available through brokers is that it saves them a lot of money. If they are offering best buy rates, they don't need to pay a broker £100s when they can get enough customers applying direct.

If lenders offer the same rates to both direct and broker-sourced customers, the reality is that they are incurring higher overall costs and therefore, all things being equal, they will not be able to offer such good rates. This doesn't square with your "everyone would benefit" statement. Clearly brokers would benefit, but customers or lenders would lose out depending who effectively pays for the brokers' fees.