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Mortgage Advice

Feeling overwhelmed?

Relax, you are in safe hands. Our Independent Mortgage Advice service will guide you through every stage of the process. We provide independent, comprehensive, and jargon-free mortgage advice. Whether you need advice on mortgages for first-time buyers, are remortgaging on your existing home, or moving up the property ladder, we can help you.

At Consilium, we pride ourselves on our efficient and supportive service. Our priority is to see you achieve your dream home on time.

What does a mortgage advisor do?

The sooner you speak to a mortgage advisor, the better. Once you find your ideal property, we can be your next port of call. The reason is that you will be wondering how much you can borrow and, therefore, what your overall budget is.

After taking time to understand your situation fully, we will provide you with an Agreement in Principle that is proof to estate agents of how much you can borrow. Some estate agents won’t let you view properties without this, so gaining this early on is vitally important.

Where is the best place to get mortgage advice? Is it better to go to a mortgage broker or a bank?

There is a significant difference between using a mortgage broker or a bank. This comes down to our independence as mortgage advisors. If you visit a bank for mortgage advice, they will only recommend their own products. This may only be 10-15 different mortgages.

However, we are fully independent mortgage advisors and can search the entire market to find the deal that works for you. Our access to the entire market means we can filter through hundreds of lenders and thousands of products until we find the one that best suits your situation. There is, of course, a higher charge when using an adviser. However, this can be quickly repaid by finding a better deal.

Furthermore, we are committed to providing the best service possible. To aid this, we conducted a survey of clients who have previously received mortgage advice. We aim to fully understand the factors most important to clients so that we can apply these values to our service.

Our key findings were:

  • The main reasons for seeking mortgage advice is to to find the best deal and for support during the process
  • The most important factors when selecting which advisor to use are knowledge, effective communication and end-to-end support throughout the process
  • The best aspects of their experience were that concepts and processes were explained clearly and that the advisor was friendly and personable
  • The factors clients would like to see improved were faster response times and more updates on the progress
From this exercise, we learned that clients value expertise and guidance from their advisors. As a result, we are committed to providing detailed information to clients in the form of web pages and documents. We will constantly update these to improve our level of service. We are here as a partner in your home buying process and will happily answer any questions or concerns that you have.

Furthermore, we have established our systems for chasing up providers and updating clients. We will give an update at least weekly on progress so that you always know where you stand.

We use mortgage sourcing software to find you the latest deals. It searches the market and makes comparisons based on the factors most important to you. This means that you know you are getting the best deal and one specifically chosen for your situation.

As for response times, we make it a priority to respond to clients promptly. Our target is to reply to all messages within two working hours.
Mortgage advice infographic

How long does a Mortgage Advisor appointment take?

This can vary as we will have various meetings or phone calls with you along the way. Our first stage is the free initial call to find out about your situation and ensure we can help you. This call can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the complexity of your situation.

Once you are happy to proceed, we will organise the fact-find meeting, and this can take some time as there are many details to find out from you. This can take place face-to-face or via a video call, whichever is more convenient for you. The fact-find meeting will take 1-2 hours in total.

Further conversations will be potentially short update meetings where we clarify details or provide the latest information on your progress and situation. Once your mortgage application needs to be completed, we will pre-complete as much as we can, and we will then meet with you to complete the rest. We aim to make this as convenient and easy as possible for you.

What happens when you go to a Mortgage Advisor?

We have two main objectives. One is to assist you with finding the best mortgage deal. That is the same with any mortgage brokerage! The other is to be your partner throughout the whole process. We want to make it as comfortable as possible for you and ensure you are not left confused or with unanswered questions. This is especially important when giving mortgage advice to first-time buyers.

At first, we have a casual conversation about your situation. This chat is free of charge and lets us confirm that we can help you. There is no obligation for you to proceed at this stage. Questions to ask your mortgage broker include how their fees are structured, as well as their overall process.

Following this, we can arrange our fact-find meeting with you, where we will take down many details to understand your objectives fully.

Our full process can be found  On our Mortgage Process page.

What will a Mortgage Advisor want to know?

This is one of the common mortgage questions. Our fact-finding process will be comprehensive. This is because the more we know about you, the more we can match your specific requirements. We will ask for basic personal information and details of your financial situation. Included in this will be your savings, income, expenditure and any current liabilities or debts. The details of your employment or main source of income will be important as, presumably, this will be the method with which you repay the mortgage.

Since there are so many different products with various terms and features, we will take the time to understand your objectives and plans for the future. Everyone has different opinions on having fixed interest rates or variable rates, as well as the degree of flexibility required from your mortgage.

For any further questions, you may have, please see our helpful Frequently Asked Questions page, which covers mortgage questions and answers.

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Remortgages

There are many reasons why you may wish to remortgage your home. Perhaps you would like a larger loan to cover house renovations, or to pay off other debts you have. If your current mortgage deal has come to an end and you are not happy with the interest rate you are paying, then you will most likely be keen for a new deal that gives you excellent value. This should not be a painful process, and we will make sure it isn’t.

A seemingly small increase in the interest rate you pay can make a significant difference to your monthly repayments. At a time when everyone is feeling the pinch, this can have a huge impact on your cost of living.
As an example, a mortgage of £200,000 being repaid over 25 years would require the following monthly repayments:
  • Initial fixed period at 2% = approximately £850
  • Standard variable rate at 4% = approximately £1,050
That is £200 extra every month being paid only on interest. This does not mean your loan is being repaid any faster, it is simply more money in your provider’s pocket. We would much rather see that money in your pocket, and we are sure you would agree!

When there are many potential costs involved with remortgaging, such as early repayment charges and initial product costs, it can be difficult to calculate whether you are better off making the switch. We will do all the leg work for you and our recommendation will be after factoring in any costs you may incur.

Find out more about our remortgaging process here.

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Consilium Asset Management are Independent Financial Advisors (IFA) based in Bristol and are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. More information can be found on the Financial Services Register under Number 469507. Registered Office: Vayre House, Hatters Lane, Chipping Sodbury, Bristol, BS37 6AA.