Should you use a mortgage broker?
It is an old cliché but getting a mortgage is one of the biggest financial decisions you will make. Therefore, it is important to make sure you get it right.
Hopefully, this guide will help you to work out whether to use a mortgage broker or as they are sometimes called mortgage adviser. Needless to say, you do not have to use a broker, you can get a mortgage from your bank, building society or even a comparison website.
Where to start
The mortgage market is incredibly competitive. It can be hard to know what exactly is on offer. There are so many different providers, not to mention an enormous range of products and rates.
To start, it is probably a good idea to have a chat with your own bank in addition to a couple of independent mortgage advisors. Perhaps you might even want to look at a comparison website, just to get an idea of what is out there.
A good broker will help you work out what level of mortgage repayments you can afford. They will look at your income as well as your credit repayments and committed spending. This way you should end up with a mortgage that suits your needs.
However, while banks, and brokers must offer advice in most cases, you could elect to reject any advice and find your own mortgage by surfing the internet comparison websites.
If you proceed without advice, it is called execution-only.
The problem with going it alone is that, if down the line, the mortgage turns out to be unsuitable, you have no rights to complain.
If you have received advice, and it turns out to be wrong, you could make a complaint of financial mis-selling.
We have more guides available for first time buyers, home buyers, remortgages and buy to let.
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