Can I speak to a mortgage adviser for free?

The kinds of free mortgage advice

Walk into a bank or building society and their in-house adviser will help you free of charge. The catch is scope: they can only recommend that lender's own products, however well or badly those happen to fit you.

MoneyHelper, the government-backed service, offers free guidance on mortgages and money generally. It's genuinely useful for understanding the basics. But it's guidance, not advice: nobody there will recommend a specific deal for your specific situation.

Then there are fee-free brokers, which is what we are. We look across the market and give regulated, personal advice, and you pay nothing, because the lender pays us a fee when your mortgage completes. Fee-free brokers arrange a large share of UK mortgages. It's a normal, established way of working, not a gimmick.

What to check before choosing one

• How they're paid. A decent adviser tells you plainly, and the lender's fee appears on your paperwork anyway.
• Whether free stays free. A few firms advertise a free first chat, then charge for the advice itself. Ask up front.
• Market coverage. Do they search widely, or recommend from a small panel of lenders?
• The FCA register. Check the firm is authorised. It takes about two minutes and it's the single best filter there is.

None of these questions offends a good adviser. We'd be worried if you didn't ask them. It's also worth asking who does the work: at some larger firms you're passed between departments, while at a small firm like ours the person you meet is the person who handles your case from start to finish.

Free doesn't mean cut-price

The advice a fee-free broker gives is regulated to the same standard as anyone else's. The difference is simply who pays for it. Ours comes with tea and a sea view in Weymouth, or a video call if you're up the road in Dorchester or over on Portland, and the first conversation carries no obligation at all.