FAQs

A. It depends on your current situation.

This is an area where a real conversation needs to take place. There are so many different answers to this question, that only an experienced adviser can provide the correct answer to this question.

The answers will be completely different for a single person with no financial dependents, to that for a married couple with children.

It then depends on any existing arrangements you may currently have (are they still appropriate for your current needs, are they still offering the cover you require and is the cost still competitive?)

As independent protection advisers, we can assess your current needs, compare the whole marketplace for the correct policies for your needs, and tailor a package specifically to you, within your stated budget.

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A. It depends on your individual circumstances.

We love this question! Our usual answer is “Let’s look after you and not worry about what’s happening in the big wide world”.

With fluctuating interest rates a huge problem at the moment (after they’ve been pretty steady for over 10 years), and who knows which way they’ll go in future, we often tell people to not worry about ‘crystal ball gazing’ and to just concentrate on their own situation.

If an increase in interest rates would significantly affect your monthly budget, and you want to ensure that any future interest rate increase does not affect you for the immediate future (let’s say between 2 to 5 years), then there are mortgage products available to protect you from such increases. Therefore a ‘Fixed Rate’ mortgage deal is the most suitable product to chose. Lenders also have to ‘crystal ball gaze’ into the future, and so ‘Fixed Rate’ deals tend to be slightly higher than Variable Rate deals, with the longer term deals being slightly higher than the shorter term deals.

However, if you are in a comfortable position financially, and feel that an interest rate increase would not affect you too much, the ‘Variable Rate’ mortgage products (such as Tracker, Discount, Capped or a combination of these types) might be appropriate. As lenders are protected against market forces turning against them, interest rates are typically slightly less for ‘Variable Rate’ mortgage deals.

As with all these matters, a conversation needs to take place to determine your ‘attitude to risk’ so that the correct mortgage product is able to be recommended to you.

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A. Eventually, your property will be repossessed.

You’ve seen the risk warning a million times.. “Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on a mortgage”. But what does this actually mean, how do you get into this position, and more importantly, how do you avoid getting into this position?

We never know what’s around the corner, and what life may deal to us. Illness, accident, unemployment and death can be very difficult to deal with, but even more so if you lose the roof over your head.

Should one of these situations land at your doorstep, the mortgage lender will lend a sympathetic ear, and they will have systems in place to manage your mortgage account to avoid ultimate repossession. You should always inform your mortgage lender of material changes to your circumstances, especially if it means that the contractual mortgage payments will be affected. Repossession is the last resort the lender wants to happen, but they can only go so far to avoid this happening.

If the situation you find yourself in is short term, you may weather the storm, but if it’s a longer term situation, a loss of income will eventually catch up with you, and payments may start to be underpaid or missed altogether. The best answer is to provide yourself with a safety net which is in place before it’s actually needed. This ‘safety net’ is called an insurance policy. There are many kinds of policies available (at a reasonable cost) to ensure that if you were to suffer illness, accident, unemployment or even death, that your mortgage commitment can be either maintained in the short to medium term, or repaid completely. To ensure you can keep your property whatever happens to you, speak to me and I can provide full advice, and a range of options for all budgets. Remember…It is better to have and not need, than to need and not have.

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A. Use this calculator to find out.

The mortgage deal you can get will be determined by many factors… the size of your deposit, the value of your property, how long you want to borrow over, and your credit profile are amongst the variables that lenders use to assess the risk of lending to you.

The calculator below can be used to get an idea how much a traditional ‘Capital and Interest’ mortgage would cost. This means that the mortgage would be completely repaid at the end of the term.

The above figures assume a daily interest type mortgage which recalculates mortgage payments daily upon receipt of a payment. Mortgages with monthly and yearly rests could cost slightly more. Ask us for a personalised illustration.

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A. Not unless you insist.

We deal with people all around the UK.

To offer the best possible service to people, we try not to waste time travelling to meet people personally. This makes us extremely efficient, helping people with their mortgage and protection needs.

The compliance regime that we work under, and the process we go through together, requires us to obtain documentation to prove identity, residence and income. Many people are happy to entrust these documents to the Royal Mail’s service, and some are not. Those that are not are welcome to visit us personally by appointment to provide the required documents, whilst we copy the originals and can then take away these items. The only extra item required to obtain by not conducting our business face-to-face is an additional item of proof of residence, so it is not a problem if we never meet face-to-face.

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A. You will need to provide various items.

To put you in the best possible position to obtain a mortgage, you will need to complete our fact-find form and provide various items that prove your identity, where you live and your income (for each borrower on the mortgage application). The whole process is also explained here.

Before you provide these items, if you believe you may have a credit history issue (such as missed payments, credit defaults, and/or county court judgements), we would need to see your credit report to get the full facts. (Sometimes, what people think they have and actually do have recorded against them are different, so the credit report is the actual proof of the situation).

> To prove identity, you’d need to provide your driving license or passport.
> To prove income, you’d need to provide your last 3 months salary payslips (or 2-3 years HMRC Tax Calculations and Tax Year Overview letters if self-employed), together with corresponding bank statements showing the salary credits.
> To prove residence, you’d have to provide a utility bill, bank or credit card statement, council tax bill or another acceptable item.
> To prove your source of deposit (bank/building society statements showing the build-up of funds over time), but not if you’re using your existing property equity solely as the source of your deposit.

Once you have provided these items,  can commit the details into our research and find you the most suitable mortgage product based on the facts you provide.

Once your mortgage application has been made, the mortgage lender may request further items they require.

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A. Yes you can, and you should!

First of all, what is a ‘lender’s Decision in Principle?

Sometimes called a DIP, and sometimes an Application in Principle (AIP), it is the confirmation that the chosen, recommended lender has provisionally agreed to lend to you (subject to satisfactory proof of income, credit scoring and/or searches, and a property assessment).

What’s the point in getting excited about a mortgage if the lender won’t actually lend to you?

Following the process, we can assess your information, match your requirements to a suitable lender’s criteria, and then apply to the mortgage lender to get their confirmation that they are happy to lend to you. With this information, you know that as long as you can comply with the lender’s requirements, that they will lend to you. You like them, and they like you – a perfect match!

This allows you to continue with your house-hunting safe in the knowledge that you have the funds to carry through the purchase once your offer has been accepted.

DIP’s are usually valid for between 30 and 90 days.

They are also available for re-mortgage cases.

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A. Most definitely, absolutely, 100% yes!

Match Mortgages is an Independent, Whole of Market mortgage adviser firm.

What does that actually mean?

‘Whole of market’ means that we can use all lenders in the UK mortgage marketplace that accept mortgage adviser’s introduced business. Every large name lender you can think of usually allows mortgage advisers to place business with them. Of course there are some exceptions, and they only accept ‘direct business’ (people who visit their branch network) and not through brokers such as our firm. Such lenders can only offer their own mortgages, not from the whole of the marketplace, like we can.

‘Independent’ is usually confused with the term ‘whole of market’. To allow to be called ‘independent’ means that, under the Financial Conduct Authority’s rules, we have to offer our clients the facility of paying for our services by a ‘fee only’ method.

We do allow people who wish to do so this arrangement. It is more fully explained within our ‘Important information about our services’ document’.

Please do not be confused by mortgage advisers in places like banks, building societies and estate agencies. If you go to a mortgage adviser in a bank or building society, they are only able to offer their employer’s mortgage products (which may not be the most competitive product available to you in the whole of the marketplace).

If you seek advice via an estate agency mortgage adviser, they are likely to only use a ‘restricted panel’ of mortgage lenders. Again, you may not end up with the most competitive mortgage deal available from the whole of the marketplace that we can offer to you.

When you speak to one of our advisers, it’s like speaking to every mortgage lender in one go. Why go anywhere else?

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A. £495, only payable upon ‘full mortgage application’.

Being British, we don’t like to speak about paying for services too openly.

However, the Financial Conduct Authority, our regulatory body, requires that fees payable are published in an open and honest way, and stated at the earliest possible moment in the process.

So what do you get for your fee*?

Well, firstly, you get the full use of our many years of experience in the UK mortgage and protection industry.

We then complete the fact-find form, you agree to pay the broker fee by signing a Client Agreement to formally instruct us to work on your behalf, and then you provide the items requested (to prove identity, residence and income for each borrower). You then have access to our full research facilities to search the whole of the UK mortgage marketplace.

We match your needs, requirements and circumstances to lenders’ criteria, so we end up with a perfect match, that results in you getting the most suitable mortgage product available to you.

Once we have identified the lender for you, we then complete the Decision in Principle application for you to obtain the lender’s agreement to actually lend to you.

Now, bearing in mind that the above can take many hours (if not days in some cases) to complete, by the end of the above stages, you will know exactly that there is a suitable lender for you and that their product is the most suitable for your needs. (As the broker fee is only paid ‘upon application’, you could walk away at this stage and not pay for all the above to happen).

Once this whole process has been completed, and you are happy, and the lender is happy, we are ready to progress to the ‘full mortgage application’. As we’d already have received all your information and items by this time, we can then commit your information onto the full mortgage application, immediately after which we will invoice you for our professional services.

We continue to liaise with the mortgage lender, solicitors, (and estate agents if a purchase) and yourself until the whole process is completed. You have full access to your own adviser during this period, although it’s more probable that you’d hear from us more than we’d need to hear from you!

Typically, a whole case takes around 20 hours to fulfill, and is spread over a 4-6 week period.

Think we’re not worth the fee? These people thought we were!

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* £495 fee applies to Residential and Buy to Let purchases and remortgages only.

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A. Let’s ask the insurers!

As life passes us by, things can happen to us medically. As a result, insurers may not offer everyone ‘standard’ rates.

If this is the position you find yourself in, and want to investigate whether you are insurable, and at what cost, we can speak to the insurers for you.

This is a free service I offer to people who are thinking of starting a new policy, for either mortgage protection or family protection purposes.

You would need to disclose full details of your medical condition so this can be discussed with the insurers. The more information you can provide, the more accurate the resulting information will be.

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A. For so many reasons! Here are the top 10 only…

1) Access to the whole UK mortgage and insurance market through one source.

2) We work for you, not the mortgage lender. We’re on your side, and we both want the same thing for you.

3) Over 100 combined years of personal, hands-on, experience advising people on their mortgage and insurances.

4) Protecting your credit file from unnecessary, ‘never in a million years’ mortgage applications

5) Personal service throughout the whole process.

6) Being your advocate. We can ‘sell’ your case to the lenders, if necessary.

7) If you are declined, saves you time with the next lender on the list.

8) Always available, outside hours if necessary.

9) Easier process for your next mortgage, so you don’t start over from scratch.

10) Time is money, and we will save you both!

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