I really dislike being pressured into decisions.
We started using an “independent” mortgage advisor when we first thought about buying a house. The way this worked was that we agreed a particular fee on completion of purchasing a house through him. At first it seemed like the right decision because we’ve never bought a house and it was useful to speak to somebody who seemed to know what they were talking about.
We then put in an offer on a house and spoke to the Estate Agent’s mortgage advisor. For this there was no fee. We were not pressured into anything and they were helpful, polite and went out of their way to explain things we didn’t understand. We decided, therefore, to dispense with the services of the independent advisor as we were offered the identical mortgage through the estate agents with no fees. No fees and dealing with the same people for everything seemed the most sensible course of action.
Shaking off the independent advisor has been like trying to remove something from your shoe when there’s no grass around. He was rude and unpleasant to Hannah when he called and wouldn’t accept her “no” as from both of us. I stuck to my guns though, and told him that that was our decision.
So, that seemed like that. But, we then had a call from “the boss” to try and persuade us to change our minds. He said he’d waive our fees as we were “an important customer”. He also thought he could get a better deal for us with Scottish Widows (currently going with Northern Rock), but the monthly payments were only fractionally less and it was borrowing less money than we need. He also patronised us by saying he would like to see us to give us some “fatherly advice”. Condescending idiot.
I will not be using their services regardless. I do not like being bullied into a decision. Sales people should apply pressure without seeming to, or convince you to buy their product with logical argument, not slagging off the competition.
We’re seeing Rob from Dixons this afternoon to go through the paperwork. If I am phoned again by the independent advisors I will tell them that my final decision is made and I will consider any other contact unsolicited.
Feh.
You could always let the independant advisor come around to visit Cassandra and myself for a _bite_ to eat.
(Our human didn’t feed us enough this morning, and seeing as you’re soon going to be my neighbour, you really ought to make a little effort….)
*WOOF!*
gosh, that sounds crap. the independent mortgage advisor we saw didn’t cost anything. she got her money through commission from whichever bank/building society she sold a mortgage for. so she still didn’t care who we went with for a mortgage, she just had to find us the best deal she could so we would go through her to get our mortgage. i didn’t even know that people charged for mortgage advice. can’t see there is much of a market for it with all these free people offering the same service.
Well, er, what she said really. This is why I said that you should see about moneysupermarket.com, because they’ll send one of the aforementioned free advisors out (or at least, they did for us).
Also, quite often the “independent” mortgage advisors in estate agents’ offices aren’t as “independent” as you might think. They’re independent in as much as they’re not on any bank’s payroll, but they are usually on commission, and the amount of commission they get from bank to bank will vary, so they’ll try to sell you the most profitable mortgage from their point of view. This might not be the case of your Dixons man, but it’s something you should be wary of.
The adviser we saw was a proper Independent Financial Adviser, he had a little rulesheet saying what he was and wasn’t allowed to sell to us. And he had loads of guidelines on what sorts of mortgages he was allowed to recommend based on our needs.
Also, he was totally free. We asked him lots of difficult questions about this and made him tell us how much commission he would get for each of the mortgages he recommended, which was fun. But, in the end, he was pretty useful.
Our mortage man was also with the estate agent we were buying the house with and you are right, it is a lot easier to arrange everything as everybody is working for the same place. Any questions we asked that should have been directed at either the estate agent or the mortgage advisor instantly got to the right person as they all wanted the sale to go smoothly so they could get their money quicker ๐
Carl, that’s what we did do. moneysupermarket referred them to us.