John Charcol Mortgages www.charcol.co.uk

I was already a client but my assigned John Charcol representative took 10 days to return my initial calls. It took 15 weeks just to swap to a new interest rate deal on a buy to let mortgage (which JC had arranged in the first place, so already had all the details). I had to constantly chase to get information and make things happen, and call backs often did not happen as promised. I lost £1,050 because the new deal was not in place when my old one expired. JC blamed everyone apart from themselves and retained a fee of £1,453. I sensed afterwards they were used to handling complaints and rejecting them - as with mine. My view is there must be better brokers to try.

Great service from the team in particular the person who was our broker. Kept us in the loop and explained the options fully. Would definitely recommend them A+ / Five star service!

We had an initial call with John Charcol several weeks ago, during which they told us we needed to complete a credit check (£10 each) and that they would follow up with a call in a few days. They never followed up the call, and have never responded to repeated emails and attempts to contact them. They don't have the results of our credit check as I haven't been asked to send them on, so it's nothing to do with "failing" any checks, just terrible customer service.

So, we're £20 out of pocket and no nearer to getting our mortgage. Thanks John Charcol!

I had exceptional service from the company. Organised a very tricky mortgage that other brokers would not even consider attempting. Guidance was brilliant.

From start to finish the most professional work I have ever experienced.

Fees are expected for this type of assistance.

Regular almost daily contact with staff, always able to update. Discussed every step with me in detail offering sound advice

I chose John Charcol as they charge for their services and as a result I expected a premium service from them. Unfortunately I was very disappointed. It took two weeks from requesting a call to make an application before I was able to get an appointment, and everything after that took so long to do. The advisor was to find out information about what documents we were to produce, and in the time it took for him to find out this relatively simple information my wife an I travelled from abroad to the UK, viewed 9 properties, had an offer accepted on one and had a full mortgage application submitted with London and County Mortgage Brokers, who I would thoroughly recommend for their speed and professionalism ,and what's more their service is completely free. I have today received an offer of mortgage as a result of their efforts. I would never recommend John Charcol to anyone in the future. Why pay a large amount of money for a sub-standard service when you can get the premium service for nothing?

I used John Charcol for two mortgages between late 2014 and early 2015

I can't say i'd recommend them as you could do a faster job yourself going direct or using another broker most of whom are free whereas John Charcol charge a fee on top of the sizeable commission they already get from the mortgage provider.

They were slow throughout the process, lost photocopies of documents and had to be chased by me numerous times throughout giving me little faith everything was in hand. Then when the mortgages completed and I took a couple of weeks paying the invoice I received threatening letters through the post threatening court action if i did not pay up immediately. Very cheeky given the delays in them actually getting the mortgages accepted!

if the service was free i'd suggest it could be of use, but not worth paying for on top!

It took more than 6 weeks to get the mortgage offer, and we nearly lost the house because of that.

I expected the mortgage advisor to ADVICE me during the process, but it seems he knew as much as I did.

The guy we dealt with was rather inefficient and didn't seem to care about customer service. He would not respond to emails, voicemails, phone calls, etc... Would not tell us when he was going on leave....

We lost nearly 2 weeks at the beginning of the process because his instructions were not clear and we as a consequence didn't provide the right supporting documents.

We got asked the same questions over and over again, and there didn't seem to be a pilot on board, especially in terms of chasing the lender.

We escalated the issue to his manager but he didnt bother even acknowledging our emails.

One of the most frustrating experience ever... Buying a house is made difficult by this sort of advisors...

Dreadfully lengthy experience with John charcol. The guy was very polite, never remembered my name, couldn't spell it either! It took nearly three months for them to arrange the mortgage. The advisor had to keep changing options because his advice was wrong to start with, he almost never called back when we were required to do something, forms were duplicated and it just became a totally frustrating experience.

Would never go back to them. Not in a million years.

I tried on 2 occasions last week to get advice by filling in the 'ask the expert' section of their website - no reply.

On Friday I contacted then via. e-mail and arranged a call back for today between 11 a.m. and 12 noon - no contact.

I contacted Customer Services today and gave them my number and asked for a call back, I received a reply saying someone would contact me - no contact.

I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear that I am taking my business elsewhere.

Our mortage broker was terrible to work with. He provided inaccurate and unreliable statements made so many errors.

I am deeply regretting my decision to process my mortgage through this broker as it has been nothing but a headache. If I hadn't already paid the valuation fees I would definitely be switching switching.

The most frustrating company I have ever had to deal with!