Free mortgage advice you can trust? Whatever next! (London & Country Mortgages)

Member Name: SWSt

Product:	London & Country Mortgages
Date:	29/03/06 (3004 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast, free, efficient, no-pressure mortgage advice

Disadvantages: Telephone & email based only, "make an appointment" feature doesn't seem to work

Introduction
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When I began looking for a new mortgage recently, I was dreading the whole process. When it comes to understanding interest rates and trackers and capped and fixed rates etc. I’m afraid my eyes tend to glaze over and I often don’t fully understand what I’m doing Equally, after my recent experiences with the Halifax Building Society (you can read my review elsewhere on the site), I wasn’t looking forward to getting involved with mortgages again.

Step forward London & Country…

Who are they?
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I first saw a reference to London & Country on the excellent moneysavingexpert website (http://www.moneysavingexpert.com). Other people have written about how good that site is, but if you haven’t already visited it, it’s well worth a look! I’d never heard of London & Country, but if Martin Lewis was recommending them, that was good enough for me!

London & Country is a telephone and web-based mortgage broker. Unlike many high street agents, who only search a limited number of products (meaning you won’t necessarily get the best mortgage for you), London & Country search through every available deal and product. Better still, they don’t charge you a fee – they get their money from the mortgage dealer they set you up with, although they do assure you that this in no way affects the advice you are given.

London & Country also regularly provide Best Buy tables and other mortgage information to some of the top national daily newspapers, so clearly they are used to providing high quality information.

The Website
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The London & Country website (http://www.lcplc.co.uk/) is nice and straightforward to use. Virtually everything is accessible from the homepage via menus under a number of different headings. So, you can find out information about the company, use the mortgages calculators to get a rough idea of how much you can borrow or how much your repayments will be, or find out about other services like insurance policies etc. Best of all, there are a number of guides to the different types of mortgage available and jargon busters to help you get your head round the complex world of mortgages. It is a good idea to read through these to get some idea of the different terms used as you do need to have at least a vague understanding of the different types of mortgage available (fixed, capped, tracker etc.). However, if you don’t understand them fully, don’t worry because your advisor will be happy to explain them further.

Making an Appointment
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This was the only part of the process where I experienced a problem, although I don’t know why. On the website, under the Apply Now link, there is the option to either phone them up (using a free phone number – this just gets better and better!) or to arrange an appointment for a specific day and time. Initially, because I didn’t have easy access to a landline and didn’t want to spend ages on my mobile, I tried to set up an appointment electronically. Theoretically, the process is simple: you select the day you would like to be contacted, select a time band (e.g. between 9-10am etc.), type in your number and wait for the call. Maybe it was because they were all booked up for the times I wanted (although if so, it would have been nice to get a courtesy call to say this), but I tried to make an appointment three times and each time received no call at the requested time. Not exactly a promising start!

I nearly gave up, but decided to give them another chance, so phoned them up when I had access to a landline. This was where the great service really began!

Initial Consultation
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The initial consultation takes around 15 minutes or so, so is much better than the hour or longer most other mortgage advisors insist upon. Despite this, I never once felt as though I was being rushed into a decision. The advisor took a few details about me and my mortgage requirements (how much I wanted to borrow, how much I could put down as a deposit etc.), then discussed the various options with me. The advice was excellent with the information very clear and concise. As I said earlier, it does help at this stage if you are already aware of the different types of mortgage available. There was no leading me down a particular path or recommending a particular type to me – I was simply presented with the options and left to decide. This is in sharp contrast to some high street mortgage advisors, who sometimes appear to try to lead you to a mortgage which will earn them most commission.

Although the consultation was short, I had plenty of opportunities to ask questions, and these were all answered fully.

After that, the advisor promised to search using the information I had given him and ring me back the next day with his recommendation.

Recommendation
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As good as his word, the following day, I got a call back identifying the mortgage which best met my needs. I was taken through every aspect of the mortgage – how much I would pay each month, the overall cost over the full term, any benefits (e.g. free survey or cashback etc.). More importantly, it was explained to me that, whilst this was not necessarily the cheapest mortgage available (in terms of monthly payments), it was the one which matched most closely the information I had given. It was also explained exactly why the other, seemingly cheaper options, would actually work out more expensive or less suitable in the long term.

Once I decided to go ahead, I gave a few more details (bank details etc.) and the application was submitted electronically (this is not always available – it depends on the mortgage chosen). I was also given a proof of mortgage slip that I could provide to the sellers to confirm I could afford the purchase – this was done by email.

Although everything was provided either by phone or email, a copy of key documents (the mortgage information etc.) was also sent to me in writing, so that I had copies for my records. All these documents were sent first class and arrived the following day.

In total, the whole process from initial information gathering, through to recommendation, acceptance and application took less than 45 minutes on the phone (all at London & Country’s expense, not mine!). Sometimes, I’ve spent nearly two hours with mortgage advisors in initial consultations, only to then spend another hour or two completing the application forms.

Insurance policies
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Where advisors make most money is on the insurance policies (accident, unemployment, critical illness, buildings and contents etc.) and they push very hard to sell you these. Again, most only search a limited number of products, so you’re not necessarily getting the best for you. They also tend to use the hard sell to try and get you to buy products which might not actually be that suitable. Mortgage advisors must also be an unlucky bunch – I’ve never met one who hasn’t had an auntie who didn’t die of cancer, or a brother who was involved in a serious accident which left him unable to work. Lucky they had this insurance, eh?

Again, with London & Country, there is none of this. You feel you are getting straightforward advice on what’s best for you. They offer to search for insurance for you, but I got the impression that had I said I didn’t want them too, they would have been perfectly happy with that. There was no hard sell – in fact, the advisor told me it wasn’t worth my while taking out a particular type of insurance, since I’m single and have no dependants. Again, the search was done and the recommendation put in the post – it was left to me whether I wanted to sign and return the form to take the insurance or not.

Personal Service
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Another strength of the service is that, once you speak to someone, you always deal with them from that point on. You get their direct phone line and email, so you can contact them immediately at any time, without having wade through lots of “Press one for mortgages” type menus.

Better still, they are more than happy to ring you at any time. I was calling from a pay as you go mobile, so was a little concerned about the cost of long conversations. When I explained this, there was no problem – either I could ring my advisor at a time convenient for me and he would immediately ring me back, or I could drop him an email suggesting a time for him to phone and he would call me then.

Response time was extremely fast. I sent around 10 emails as part of the process, either asking for clarification on some points or trying to set up an appointment. Want to know the LONGEST time I had to wait for a response? 20 minutes. Now that’s what I call service!

Follow-up Service
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One of the pitfalls with mortgages is that you take out a mortgage providing you with a good deal for 2 or 3 years. However, when that expires, the terms are not so favourable, so you suddenly find your payments go up dramatically. Many of us either don’t realise when the current deal expires, or just feel we don’t have the time to go through the whole process of remortgaging. Once again, London & Country step in – they keep your details on file and, when your current deal is about to expire, they’ll give you a call and see if there is now a better mortgage for you. Obviously, I can’t comment on whether this works, since I’m not at that stage yet, but given the superb service I’ve had from them so far, I’ve no reason to doubt it.

Conclusion
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For the first time ever, I’ve actually come away from a mortgage advisor with the feeling that they were genuinely trying to find the best deal for me – not the one which would earn most commission for the advisor. The advice was clear and the service excellent. Frankly, I would never consider going anywhere else for my mortgage advice now. And best of all, of course, it was completely free.

Contact Information
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As stated above, all consultations are done by phone or email. You can find their website at http://www.lcplc.co.uk/ or call them on 0800 953 0304

Summary: From now on, I won't be going anywhere else for my mortgage advice.