charcol.co.uk > Reviews > Charcol Online - bad remortgage experience

Author's product rating:   

Presentation/navigation of site	Good
Reliablility/speed of site	Good
Quality of content	Average
Range of products/services offered	Average
Competitiveness of charges	Good

Advantages:	Attractive mortgage deals, initial contact via the web, reasonable fees/cost
Disadvantages:	Extremely slow progress from application to mortgage, needs a lot of cajoling

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Let me first make clear that this is a review of the "Charcol Online" service. I suspect this is a different service from the one provided by one of their branches and also suspect that you pay a lot less for the privilege at Charcol Online.

It has been a slow and frustrating process to get the mortgate organised. In my opinion this is mostly cause by inexperienced and uninterested sales associates.

Like one of the other reviewers this was a straight remortgage.The following has happened so far:

• filled in application online, now waiting for mortgage illustration document.
• heard nothing, saw nothing on our account on the website (despite claims that the illustration document would be posted there).
• Failed miserably to get through to the Sales Associate for a while, no response to email enquiries.
• Forms must have got lost in the post because in the end they had to be faxed to us.
• We had to remind them that we had opted for one of their affiliated conveyancing firms. The solicitors would only act after contact from Charcol online.

Those just are some of the 'highlights', my wife could rant about it for a good deal longer at the moment.I have to add that we've also had screw-ups at the mortgate company and the solicitor. I know that you get what you pay for. If you pay a broker a lot of money to arrange the whole deal it is often a nice straigtforward process. Using somebody like 'Charcol Online' there isn't much in the way of service fees and I would expect a hiccup or two but not an almost complete breakdown in communication.

They have attractive deals on offer: you just have to be prepared to battle hard to get your mortgage ceal completed.