My mortgage needs reviewing & I have plans to improve my financial situation. I need good honest independant advice.

Our last "independant" advisor was 'introduced' by the building society who were also selling the house we wanted.

Guess who he indepedantly advised us was our best lender..? :suspect:

AND we ended up with a damned endowment policy despite me wanting a repayment type.

Now I have an allergy to Financial Advisers. I get all sorts of violent thoughts as I expect to be ripped off.

Please :help: :help: :help: Me!

Having worked in the finance industry for a while, my best advice is to go to an advisor who charges up-front fees. This way you know what they are getting paid and that their opinion should be unbiased. Financial companies that sell investments etc. give commission to advisors when policies are set up, which is shown in the small print on policy documentation and consumers are often unaware of. Therefore, some unscrupulous financial advisors will use the companies that will pay them the highest commission rather than the one which provides the best deal for the customer.

If you pay upfront fees to the advisor, they will normally instruct the company to put all or part of that commission into the investment or policy so you are much more aware of how much money they are being paid to sell you something. You are also likely to get some of those upfront fees back if you end up investing or buying a financial product in the form of that commission sacrifice.

Hope that makes sense and helps!

Maybe you have grounds for complaint over the endowment selling.

You can pay for independent financial advise but if what I heard on Money Box a few months ago is true then even there you are taking pot luck.

Personally I'd start with getting the various mortgage magazines there are out there & listening to programmes like Money Box etc on Radio 4 & Working Lunch on BBC2 & get an idea of what would be best for you before talking to various financial advisors & seeing which one inspires the most confidence (once you've already got the basic knowledge you need under your belt)

You can't beat doing plenty of background research :)

Having said that - if John (on this forum) has an opinion on this I'd say he was the man to ask - he always seems very clued up on all of the latest financial stuff & he explains it well too :)

Thanks for this, Is John an adviser himself?

Is that in itself a recommendation?
I am fairly 'phobic' when it comes to this sort of stuff.

Not as far as I know - just very clued up & financially astute - but also very busy I think. So hope he sees this & gives you his opinion :)

Hope so:thumbsup:

Happy Birthday Sian too :clap:

Warnes AndertonUnit 27,Dinnington Business Centre, Outgang Lane, Dinnington, Sheffield, South Yorkshire S25 3QX Tel: 01909 560677 .


Very Good, Very honest & I'll use them again.

Geoff Kendall
G.K. Associates
2-4 Abbeydale Road South
Millhouses

0114 2011000

Thankyou, I'll give the one in Dinnington a bell first I think
(simply because Dinnington was my childhood home - although this should not really influence me I know :loopy: )

:thumbsup: