Great deal on a mortgage (Alliance & Leicester)

Name: Hannah111

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Product:	Alliance & Leicester
Date:	15/08/01 (2272 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good customer service, flexiability, discounted rates

Disadvantages: none

When we decided to buy our own (first)property we were up against a mind field of mortgage companies offering us so many types and varities, we just didnt know what to do.

We decided to take some advise form an independant (and i do mean independant) financial aadviser. At the time we were buying our house (Jan 2000) the market was booming in the South, house prices were going up by £1,000 a week, we were slowly being priced out of the market. After looking at what other building societies and mortgage companies could offer us we made our decision, The Alliance and Leicester.

The Alliance and Leicster building society were great, they helped us every step of the way, even when we were gazumped.

As we were first time buyers we did have the 5% deposit needed, but our figures were tight, but this didnt seem to bother them, they agreed to extend the term of the mortgage to 30 years rather than the standard 25 year period.

We were advised to go with a "base rate tracker mortgage", a six month tie in, discounted for the fist six months (4.5%),a mortgae which is 1% below the rate at which the building society would normally be offereing (after fist 6 months), but variable so the if the bank of Englands interest rate reduced, so would our mortgage. But we were also advised that if this rate were to go up then we would need to change our more and fix in at a more appropriate fixed rate deal.

For those of you reading this you may think this is all common sense, but for fist time buyers out there it can be very daunting to even start looking, let alone understand what all the jargon means.

It was'nt just the mortgage deal that was sold to us it was all the other services that came with it which Alliance and Leicester provided, the explanations, the flexiabilty, the term etc.

As this is my first mortgage i have had no other examples of banks or building socities, so i do not know if they offer simil
ar services, i assume they do.

Summary: