Alliance And Leicester Mortgage Review

Overall Rating

Low rate

Hidden charges

The £295 redemption administration charge on an Alliance & Leicester Mortgage is the highest in the market and you will have to pay this if you move mortgage any time during the term (e.g 25 years), not just the original deal (e.g 2 year fixed).

Also, its valuation fees are out of line with the rest of the market.

Always be wary of abnormally low rate products, as the provider will have to recoup money from elsewhere, even if this is trying to sell you more products (e.g Halifax bombard customers with sales calls after purchasing its best buy products).

Members' Comments onOB ONE's Review

• ProfH on 21st Aug 2006

  I took an Alliance and Leicester mortgage on line. There were various enticements at the time such free conveyancing. I was also (wrongly) offered an additional £250 bonus if I opened a premier account (on the whole not a bad account) at the same time. They realised their error later. The offer from the telephone adviser should have been Free conveyancing OR £250. It took around 10 letters to finally get a reply on that issue. Even then, they were not apologetic.
  
  As for the free conveyancing, if you are in no hurry to move into your new place, then go for it. It took around 4 months and alot of pestering of their conveyancers before I could finalise my move into an empty newly built property. You never get to speak to the same person twice at their office, and quite often the telephone adviser has to go and ask advice from a properly qualified property lawyer for very simple queries. Yes, the free conveyancing saves you money on solicitors fees BUT not when you are renting elsewhere because you can't move into an empty property.
  
  I recently tried to make a lump sum payment towards the mortgage. This took 3 months of writing to the Alliance and Leicester mortgages and bank account departments and unsurprisingly NO REPLY. It was finally sorted by going into an Alliance and Leicester branch and a cashier putting me through to a special bank account/mortgage account co-ordinating service they have (you wouldn't know about this unless you actually visit a branch). Oh, by the way, you may think you have seen an option of doing this by the phone. But when you phone up, they ask for a code...you wouldn't know the code unless you are enlightened by a branch advisor.
  
  On the whole the telephone and internet services are extremely poor and you are nothing but a number. There is no accountability for their snail paced performance and inaccuracy when selling you the product.
  
  My advice... If you decide to take out an Alliance and Leicester mortgage, do it via a high street branch.