Moving home is a stressful enough time in life without the worry about whether you’ve received the best interest rate on your mortgage, whether you can raise enough money to buy your dream home, or how best to structure the balance between your deposit and borrowing (particularly if you want to save some of your hard-earned money to make improvements on your new home). Individuals’ financial affairs are also becoming increasingly complicated with an increasing number of self-employed individuals, or those with multiple income streams, so it’s important to get expert advice from someone you can trust to find you the right mortgage to suit your needs.

Whilst we don’t offer advice on mortgages (we definitely stick to what we do best – financial planning!) we have a number of trusted mortgage advisers we regularly use ourselves and refer clients to for expert advice.

These advisers will work closely with you (and us where appropriate) to ensure that they obtain for you a mortgage offer at the best possible rate. They deal with an increasing number of complicated scenarios including self-employed business owners, individuals with multiple income streams, investors looking to build buy to let portfolios, and parents looking to help their children take a step on the property ladder. They will take the time to understand your situation, and by using their effective working relationships with banks and underwriters, built up over a number of years, they will be able to present the case in such a way that the bank is comfortable with it.

So if you’re looking to take a step on the property ladder, or support a family member in taking that step, we would be happy to make an introduction to one of our trusted advisers for you as appropriate. Early preparation is key in gaining a mortgage offer, so even if you’re in the initial stages of thinking about moving property it’s important to gain advice early on.

James Caplan, Managing Director of First Financial, is one of our trusted mortgage advisers and if you’d like to read our interview with James in The Club magazine you can read it here.