Alexanderhall Reviews

I am a first time buyer and was not made aware by the advisers at the Holborn branch mortgages on properties above commercial premises are harder to secure and may be refused He then made my mortgage application to a lender which I was later told by his colleague is more likely to refuse a mortgage because of commercial premises The mortgage perhaps not surprisingly was refused and I lost the money I had already spent on the lawyer and lost another few thousands pounds because I couldn t move at the planned date I also only found out after I asked that cladding and the floor the property is on can influence a lender s decision to provide a mortgage or not Worst of all the adviser did not even understand why this is a problem and kept repeating that he found the most competitive rate Obviously the most competitive rate is not particularly useful if the lender is not prepared to lend on the property you want to buy I was also told the likeliness of a lender to provide a mortgage should not influence my decision whether to buy or not which is obviously complete nonsense Because if you have difficulty securing a mortgage a potential buyer if you wanted to sell may have difficulties as well which could influence your ability to sell the property further down the line Throughout the entire process I did not feel like I was given the right information for me to make a good decision but rather that information was kept from me and people kept trying to talk me into making a choice they thought I should make The advisers didn t take my concerns about privacy sharing bank statements seriously trying to fob me off with why would you make your life harder which I think is unprofessional and disrespectful I had to tell them repeatedly to provide me with information they are legally obliged to give to me I still don t have some of the information I have asked for

Processed a first home buyer mortgage through Alexander Hall The processed was rushed and it felt like the advisor wanted to maximise his commissions through selling different products like referring to a conveyancer life insurance etc In addition my help to buy application form was returned twice as from the HTB office as the form was handwritten and had a few spelling mistakes on it which delayed my approval by 3 weeks When asked for support they are very weak

As first time buyers and without any prior experience with the property purchase process we decided to follow our estate agent s referral and reach out to Alexander Hall The initial conversation was quite pleasant and the AH adviser with whom we spoke was helpful in answering our queries This is the only reason why I m giving the extra 2nd star in my review Given how well our initial experience with AH went we decided to pursue a mortgage with them once we had an offer accepted a few months later We reached out to the same agent who actually informed us that we were lucky as interest rates were even lower than the ones we discussed in the past Things went downhill from there as in his follow-up email the rates he quoted in the options he presented to us were very different higher than what he mentioned on the phone This prompted us to conduct an online search across many major lenders all searches were about the same type of product in terms of LTV fix-term period etc so rates can be compared directly and we were shocked to see that the available rates on the market were much lower When we questioned this discrepancy the response we received from the broker is that AH is a whole-of-market broker that no-one beats them on rates and that the options they presented to us were the best for our individual circumstances He also mentioned that if we tried to go directly to one of the major lenders we would be entangled in a nightmare of additional documentation requests delays and potentially rejection Interestingly we were also told that we would have to accept one of the options he proposed before we could be given a detailed explanation on why these were the best options for us In other words we were asked to be careful about all other alternatives and blindly trust them without being offered any data to explain their reasoning Fortunately we decided not to fall for it and we submitted an application directly with a lender instead The process was much smoother and quicker than what the AH advisor suggested it would be and we received our mortgage offer without any unexpected issues or delays Perhaps it might have been easier to let the broker communicate with the lender and manage the application on our behalf but the difference in the interest rate we managed to get plus not having to pay AH s fee was so significant that we certainly made the right choice Also lenders also have mortgage advisors that in our case were very helpful along the entire application process too All in all and based on our personal experience going to a broker is a big waste of unless there are special circumstances in your case and you need to find a niche mortgage product in which case a broker might be a better option In most cases though it s going to save you a good amount of money if you just do your research plenty of data easily available online and go directly to a lender of your choice

Tristan the mortgage advisor had appalling email etiquette when found out that we ve decided to go with a different mortgage provider His response to me was aggressive arrogant and simply unprofessional Having sales experience myself I found that outrageous If you don t like the final decision of your prospective client be KIND Self-reflect on what could have been done better look for constructive criticism and move on No need for negative vibes during COVID-19 lockdown Best of luck Aleks and DariuszUpdate After publishing this review Tristan and his manager Stephanie reached out to us to discuss the experience We accepted their apologies We were positively surprised that the company takes Trustpilot s reviews seriously and investigates the problem thoroughly Customer incentive was also a nice add on - definitely not expected Overall Stephanie s professionalism and Tristan s apology made up for the experience

Updates Week 4 after contacting the number in reply of this post I got someone else working on my case and finally received the AIP on the same day It could have been a smooth and quick process I m very glad with the action they took after the message was sent to the correct person and addressed the issue right away - it also means there are definitely something to improve in the communication loop Changing my review from 1 to 3 stars -----------------------------------------------The good review here made me turn to Alexander Hall but ends up with disappointments Week 1 had initial call with one of the advisor who seems to join them just this year from LinkedIn the conversation went well and I was promised to expect an AIP in the same week No updates at end of week 1 Week 2 no updates this week I sent a follow up email to the advisor No response Week 3 the advisor did not answer the phone Then I made several calls to 08000 38 37 36 and only found out the advisor was on leave Each of the client team who answered calls to that 800 number said they can do nothing but escalate to managers via emails and I should expect someone to reply me ASAP And guess what at end of week 3 I have heard nothing from anyone It s a very disappointed experience of being ghosted not just by one advisor but the people on the escalation chains if it does exist They did not deliver what they have promised

I would definitely recommend Alexandra Hall Mortgage Brokers I was assisted with my mortgage application by Alex Male who was very professional efficient and knowledgeable about mortgage products which were suitable for my personal circumstances I will definitely seek his assistance in the future and recommend him to family friends and colleagues

Knowledgeable and helped me achieve my desired loan amount in the end That said communication could have been much better and more guidance and advice could have been given esp given the higher fees It was impossible to reach my broker by phone I was given v little time to consider the options and had to do most of the research by myself Email system maintenance seems to happen every other week leading to delays in replying etc

The broker who was dealing with our case left his job at Alexandra Hall and a second broker took over our case This handover took almost 2 weeks time or even more and we had no one responding to us for those 2 weeks and we were not even aware that this was going to happen Our transaction got delayed and also in these 2 weeks time interest rates rose and we ended up with a higher interest The second dealer was proactive and took my feedback on and helped us through and I thank him a lot

The process was fairly straightforward and I thought that the brokers did a good job of narrowing down potential lenders based on my particular circumstances The overall time from offer acceptance to mortgage offer was about five weeks I sometimes felt like the actual work of the mortgage lender was a bit opaque and I only received copies of documents such as the lender s valuation when I asked for them

Good service generally speaking Quick on response and takes charge One thing I want to mention is that on the first I was told I could get lower rate which turned out not to be the case Perhaps through research needs to be done prior to submitting offer email Also there were a lot of exchange of emails which could really have been done with one or two Having a list of things with their template or guide would be nice