Broker Recommendations

Hi,

Can anyone recommend a broker that they have dealt with and that has a good reputation and similar to FSA membership?

ALso any advice on best way of transferring large amounts of sterling at the best rate?

Thanks. 

 Sorry, I meant mortgage broker in Spain....

 Best advise is go to a bank yourself. Brokers will want paying and they will tell the bank anything to get a mortgage approved

You are quite correct Andy that brokers do charge a fee for arranging a mortgage. As to them "telling a bank anything" I think you are living in the past when it comes to the Spanish mortgage market. While many brokers used to operate that way, thankfully most of them had to disappear with  changing economic conditions changing following the "crisis". Banks now triple check everything and it has become a lot more difficult to get a mortgage than in the days of "Dodge City." 

Some may say it is closing the door after the horse has bolted and they would probably be right but The Bank of Spain has now made it so difficult for non-residents to get mortgage funding here that many of the banks simply prefer not to do it and have closed their books to new non-resident borrowers. Add to that they can get more bang for their buck by lending to the Greek Govt with the debt being underwritten by the EU (EURIBOR currently set at about 0.5% when they can get 8% plus from Greece) vanilla mortgage lending has simply become too much of a chore for them. Were it not for the fact that banks that have traditionally lent to residential borrowers have been directed (and incentivised) by the BOS to support the mortgage market (and thus the construction market) to some degree, I suspect lending would have dried up completely.

As to Stuart Errington’s enquiry as to FSA passporting etc. Mortgages in Spain have never been a regulated financial product. Banks (and brokers to be fair – although to my own knowledge there are only three remaining on the Costa del Sol) can tell you as much or as little as they like. For ourselves, all of our personnel were professionally trained and qualified in the UK prior to moving to Spain and since we established here in 2003 we have always operated according to FSA guidelines/procedures when it comes to transparency, advice, provision of written quotes, key facts letters etc.  

Hi Stuart i would recommend using a company called overseas mortgage.I strongly disagree with smiley. firstly it has become much easier to get a mortgage in spain, there are so many government incentives for doing so. but you will need a broker, it is not as simple as the uk market and the banks are perhaps not as efficient.

overseas-mortgage

. co.uk/spain-mortgage.html 

Hi Alice,

Just wanted to say "thankyou" to someone who speaks sense and provides positive help.

There are far too many on EOS who spout off at the first opportunity without knowing the basics.  It's a wide market and contains some rogues but a considerably larger number who are highly professional.

Hi Alice - first of all my post was put up there in March 2013 which is nearly a year ago so may not be pertinent to the current market today. My post also reflected the current situation then as opposed to the times (we have operated in Spain since 2003 so we have a fair idea of what can and cannot be done in the current market) when the only mortgage requirement was literally "pulse and a passport".

You are entitled to your opinion of course and while there may be Govt incentives towards acquiring a mortgage here NONE of those relate to any easier processes of administration when it comes to collecting and authenticating income and liability documentation for a mortgage applicant. Domestic/resident buyers are incentivised but the only incentive the Govt offers to non-residents is an offer of easier residency (they want buyers in the tax system) - they make no help towards the mortgage - financial or otherwise.

All Spanish banks had their fingers very badly burned in the credit collapse - so much so that Spain lost in the region of 50% of its mortgage lending banks. Of those that remain many still decline to offer mortgages of any description to non-residents. Most will not lend on rustic property. There are three that have imposed criteria whereby they will only lend to applicants that receive their income in Euros. There are lenders who decline to owners of more than one property with a mortgage (i.e. the investor buy to let market), on the basis that they are "high risk". There are lenders who will not lend to single males as they are "high risk". They now receive severe fines from the Bank of Spain (which is a Govt institution) if a borrower goes into arrears or default, so procedures are most certainly not any more relaxed. These are all things that have happened in the last 2 to 5 years and they still remain in place - if that's making the mortgage process easier then we would have to agree to differ.

The one area where any flexibility has been offered at all is on toxic debt whereby properties that have been respossessed by a bank owing to default the bank at its discretion can offer a higher loan to value ratio than they would to a third party purchase so that the bank can remove it from its bad debt book. However there are a few early signs of green shoots of recovery - for the first time since 2009, banks have actually been given lending targets for 2014 which I guess can only be seen as a good sign and are pressing us for new business. Any suggestion we make of a relaxing of procedures or their new found credit scoring system is still being laughed at.

You may not like what I have to say but we have always believed in the ethos of telling people what they need to know rather than what they want to hear.  

Actually I have just looked at the website you recommended Alice....... their home page for Spain is almost laughable as the taxes are completely out of date since the Govt increased IVA and transfer tax - it is now impossible to get interest only mortgages in Spain .... they refer to either employed or "unemployed" borrowers ...... hmmmm I guess their lender pertners must be rushing to lend money to people with no income ..... chargeable rates at Euribor + 1.5% ...... that hasnt been seen since about 2010 ...... the lowest possible margin above Euribor now is 2.8% (and only with very strict criteria) ..... they mention tax exemptions for buying in company structure..... that has been outlawed by the Govt/Hacienda ..... I could go on but I guess when a broker is based in Spain the chances of being better informed are likely to be higher

It's been some time since this was commented on, but given current climate is it best to go direct to the bank or use a broker? And as per Stuart's original question if so, are there any recommendations?

I'm not going to recommend my own business Janbo25 as that would be inappropriate but in spite of market conditions during the last 8 years (the latest 2 years much better it must be said) we are still in operation successfully arranging mortgages for clients and 70-80% of those clients derived from personal recommendation