05 Dec, 2023/ by Homeward Legal /Remortgage
One of the most stressful times of someone's life has been identified as the process of moving house. Notwithstanding the legal elements, and all the attendant tasks that seem to be on an ever-growing list, there is quite a pressure in finding the finance you need to pay for it.
This decision process includes calculating whether you have sufficient resources to fund the initial deposit, as well as assessing the affordability of the general expenditure and projected household budgets to see if you can keep up with the monthly payments (without putting home-ownership in jeopardy with the lender foreclosing on the loan).
That requires a lot of effort to research and choose from the myriad mortgage deals that are on the market from a seemingly endless list of lenders and brokers.
Knowing which one of these products and the precise lender that are best for your particular needs, and then understanding how much faith you can put in the lender that provides the finance, is daunting enough without everything else that is going on as you prepare to move into your new house.
Helping to short-list your prospective lender
Consumer champion Which? regularly looks at all manner of consumables and service provisions from kitchen gadgets to cars, from insurance services to fuel providers, and includes a regular review of the lending companies that offer mortgage products.
In October 2023, Which? embarked on a research project that took customer feedback for mortgage lenders and their analysis of the deals that each of the lenders offer to come up with the list of the best and worst mortgage lenders for 2023.
To ensure a statistically significant result, Which? filtered all of the responses from more than 3,400 mortgage borrowers who responded to the survey, and sifted through several thousands of available mortgage products from a pool of 22 lenders to ascertain which one of them came out best - and which came at the bottom of the league table.
The respondents to the survey provided their thoughts on a wide variety of aspects that covered their rating of:
- The lender's customer service
- value for money of their chosen product
- ability to overpay or underpay the mortgage
- clarity of mortgage statements
- online access
- transparency of charges
- transparency of penalties
Taking each of these criteria and combining the results, the full list of the lenders was:
Rank | Mortgage lender | Customer score |
1 | Nationwide Building Society | 78% |
1 | Skipton Building Society | 78% |
3 | Yorkshire Building Society | 75% |
4 | Accord Mortgages | 72% |
5 | Santander | 71% |
5 | TSB | 71% |
7 | Coventry Building Society | 70% |
7 | NatWest | 70% |
9 | Leeds Building Society | 69% |
10 | Lloyds Bank | 68% |
11 | First Direct | 67% |
12 | Barclays Mortgage | 65% |
12 | HSBC | 65% |
14 | Halifax | 64% |
14 | Royal Bank of Scotland | 64% |
16 | Clydesdale Bank | 63% |
17 | Virgin Money | 60% |
18 | Aldermore | 58% |
19 | Family Building Society | 55% |
20 | Kensington | 54% |
20 | Metrobank | 54% |
20 | The Co-operative | 54% |
Source: Which?
As can be seen, with an overall score of almost 80%, it's the Nationwide Building Society, alongside Skipton Building Society who come out on top, while the three vying for the bottom rung of the ladder are Kensington, Metrobank and The Co-operative, all of whom scored just over half of the whole score.
You can find out more detail here as to how the individual mortgage lenders fared in the overall Which? analysis.
Ele Clark, senior money editor at Which?, said:
“With mortgage rates at some of their highest levels for 15 years and alarming numbers of homeowners struggling to meet their monthly payments, customer service is more important than ever.
“Our research has found that some of the UK's biggest building societies lead the way when it comes to quality service, with greater transparency over charges and - crucially - flexibility when making payments.
“The Financial Conduct Authority has now set higher standards in its Consumer Duty, raising the bar for customer service - and firms that fail to meet that bar should expect to face tough consequences from the regulator.”
What this information means to your mortgage plans
This detailed research showed that, more than ever, what prospective borrowers consider to be the most important facet of a lender is all to do with customer service and how they are treated. Value for money came a close second, which shouldn't come as a surprise.
For the money-conscious home-mover, particularly in these financially-straitened times, having this information to hand is so useful in making the right decision before embarking fully on the road to buying a new property.
Using such information along with your own research into what is available and what is ultimately the best fit for your immediate and long-term needs will help you narrow down your options in what is a very broad and busy field.
Looking for an assurance that at least the cost of the legal side of your move is the best possible?
That's where Homeward Legal can really help with affordable but quality conveyancing services! They will start work on your planned purchase and/or sale as soon as you agree to the quotation and appoint them to represent you.
Homeward Legal will also provide a quote that will not change - what you are quoted is what you pay for standard conveyancing process.
There are some unforeseen items that might arise during the purchase and/or sale, but the solicitor discusses these and their cost as they come up.
In addition, to protect the homebuyer further, Homeward Legal operates a ‘no completion, no fee' promise, which ensures that, should the purchase or sale not go through as planned to completion status, no payment is required.
Call to get your conveyancing quote started, or to discuss your concerns with your plans to move.
Or you can get a quick quote, using Homeward Legal's easy-to-use quote generator.