I took out a mortgage with FirstActive in October 2005, I used an independant mortgage advisor and they returned the best results. The fees were £300 for a level 2 Property Inspection and £95 start-up fee. The interest rate is guaranteed for 2 years to be 0.05 above the base rate, obviously its a variable rate.
I would say the overall package offered by FirstActive was good on paper but they struggled to match this with their customer service. For example I haven't had a mortgage statement through atall since the start of the mortgage - this is a minor failing though. The largest source of concern came with them sending out their mortgage pack which you have to sign and return. They managed to waste just over a week by twice sending this pack to the wrong address. This is despite me calling them and checking the address with them ...
Advantages: Good interest rates Disadvantages: Cheesy adverts; flawed internet sign up
Now part of the Bank of Scotland Group, they appear to have been picked up from an Irish bank and slight rebranded as a telephone/internet mortage offering.
Having just remortgaged to FirstActive I have mixed views over the process...
Selecting
Checking the latest offers, FA offer an excellent rate on 3 types of mortgages (tracker, fixed, discount). We opted for the tracker which is pegged to Bank of England base rate for 3 years (currently 4.75%).
The only minus is that they tie you in with an early redemption penalty for the life of the discount.
The big plus is that all the offers are available to all applications, old and new, so you do not have to move mortgages to another lender to get the best rates.
Applying
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I completed the internet form fairly easily.
It allows you to save and return so that ...
Advantages: Interest Rates, advisor was friendly Disadvantages: Regultion nightmare, hidden fee's (which are against regulations!)
Those of us with mortgages out there will know the feeling. Your introductory rate on you mortgage is coming to an end, you are about to be out of the dreaded tie in period so now is the time for those of use wise enough to steer clear of Independent Financial Advisors (just DON'T get me started..) start to trawl the net to try and find another fantastic (if we are lucky) mortgage deal to transfer to in the hope of saving a bit of money.
So, in March this year, that's exactly what I did. After seeing the advert on TV about how FirstActive (FA from now on) were making mortgages 'the way they should be', I was happy to find they had a great deal on offer of a Bank of England tracker rate for two years. I grabbed the phone.
Calling them and getting through was straight forward enough, no major queue to wait through and a nice ...
