That's a good deal, I've arranged a few on that this past few weeks.

You need to be ultra squeaky clean on your credit record though and there is no facility for overpayments.

Many thanks for getting back to me... here's the outcome of last night's meeting with the advisor:
The best offer they've given is a 3yr fixed with First National as the lender, but is an arranged package through Pink home loans, this will be 4.89% for the 3yr term with no out of term redemtion charge, however there is a mandatory £200 release fee. I'm very happy with this offer so far & we're waiting for them to get back to us with a full key facts illustration (hopefully tonight). Overall if this becomes a guaranteed offer & we proceed, we will be paying at least £50 a month less compared with if we'd shopped for a mortgage on the high street. Great advise on this site, very useful & informative, thank you. Paul.

If they can't beat the quote you have already, you'll presumably not use them and they'll (presumably) not charge the fee, since completion won't take place through them.

You could find a whole of market broker than doesn't charge fees ;-)

5 year fixed rates - fine.

By looking for a mortgage defined as "flexible" you are rejecting 5 year fixed rates without the flexible tag. Most 5 year fixed rates will allow you to over pay by up to 10% of the value of the mortgage each year, so if overpayments are your objective and 10% is enough the search criteria can be widened, improving your chances of getting a better deal.

Probably the best 5 year fixed rate at the moment is with Standard Life Bank at 5.15% taking into account the fees and interest rate and it has flexible features.

Mathematically, the Chelsea's is best although few advisers give it a second thought - they have a poor rate 6.75% but the product has a 6% cashback and a free survey. This beats most rates on loans below appx £175000. It would do even better if you had the discipline to pay the cashback straight back into the mortgage. It's not described as flexible, so you'd have to weigh up which features of a flexible mortgage you needed.

You should ask your adviser for a comparison of the the products over 5 years - his software if most likely to be able to do this at the press of a button - this will add up 60 monthly payments + any fees and in the case of the Chelsea, deduct the cashback and come back with a total figure.

Good luck, give me a call/e-mail if I can help

Adrian Garside

Hi, we're currently looking to upgrade from a 2bed to a 3bed semi (as we now have 2 children). We have been swating up on the home buying / selling processes & know what's involved but we're stumped when it comes to what happens when. We've accepted an offer on our property & put in an offer on our next property that's also been accepted, but we're still sorting out our mortgage as i want the best deal for us & have been shopping around; we've got an independant whole market mortgage adviser that i had contact me from moneysupermarket.com, they're coming round tommorow evening (22/08), they operate on a £195 fixed fee basis (payable on completion), now then, if they can't beat a good deal that i've been offered elsewhere already, will i still have to pay their fee i ask you? We're looking for the best 5yr flexi fixed repayment mortgage btw. Endownment question - we currently have one ot these & require it's value to go towards our next property purchase; i've been told the best thing to do is to sell it, so i've registered with http://www.fastteps.com/ also have called them; they are very helpfull (also told that i should get at least £1500 more than the cash in value). That's about it for now, thanks for reading, any helpfull info greatly appreciated in reply. Kindest regards, Paul.