About

A mortgage adviser that shows you the whole loan.

Cost, term and fees, in front of you before you commit to any of it — rather than in paperwork, in week three, when the offer is already moving.

We advise on residential mortgages in the United Kingdom, across purchases, moves and remortgages.

Talk to an adviser

An adviser mid-conversation at a desk, a laptop and notepad open in front of her.

The premise

The information arrives in the wrong order.

A mortgage is presented as a rate and a monthly figure, because those are the two numbers that fit in an advertisement. The parts that decide what it actually costs — the length of the initial period, the arrangement fee, the reversion rate at the end, the charge for leaving early — are all in the documentation, and the documentation arrives after the decision has effectively been made.

None of that is hidden. It is simply sequenced badly, and the effect of bad sequencing is that people commit to twenty-five year arrangements on the basis of two numbers out of six.

The whole of our approach is a reordering. The full shape of the loan goes in front of you at the start, including the parts that are inconvenient to mention, and the recommendation comes after you have seen them rather than before.

Whole-of-market search across residential lenders, including products not sold direct.

One adviser named on your file from first call to completion.

A quiet London mews of white and brown houses, a tree in autumn leaf against a clear blue sky.

The standard

What we hold a case to.

Comparison on total cost

Products ranked by what they cost across the whole initial period — interest, product fee, valuation, everything attached — rather than by headline rate. The working is shown, not summarised.

Placement before submission

A case goes to a lender whose criteria it actually meets. Establishing that before a hard credit search is most of what avoids a decline, and a decline is expensive in both time and credit file.

One adviser throughout

The person who takes the first call owns the case to completion. A file that changes hands loses the context that made it placeable, and rebuilding that context is where avoidable delay comes from.

Saying when we add nothing

If your existing lender's product transfer is the best available outcome, that is what you will be told. It happens, particularly where circumstances have changed, and it is a legitimate answer.

Both numbers disclosed

Any fee we charge and any commission a lender pays, stated in writing before you are committed to anything. Together they are the cost of the advice, and you are entitled to see them as one figure.

Plain description of risk

Interest-only needs a repayment plan. Consolidating unsecured debt onto a mortgage secures it against your home. A longer term costs more in total. None of these gets softened.

Regulatory

Who we are, formally.

The statutory detail below is published in full on the disclosures page. It is repeated here because it is the sort of thing people look for on an about page.

Legal entity

A Star Mortgage Services Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 13128540. Registered office: 21 Allington Street, Leicester LE4 6AE.

A Star Mortgage Services is the name that company trades under, and the two refer to the same firm.

Authorisation

A Star Mortgage Services Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA reference number 948502. You can check the status of any UK firm on the Financial Services Register, which is maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority and is free to search.

What we advise on

Residential mortgages for purchase, for moving home and for remortgaging, and buy-to-let lending. Buy-to-let is in most cases not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority; where a case falls within the consumer buy-to-let definition, it is.

Where we act

We are based in the Midlands, at 21 Allington Street, Leicester LE4 6AE, and most of our clients are buying, moving or remortgaging in Leicester and the surrounding counties.

We advise across the United Kingdom. Property law, purchase taxation and some lending criteria differ between England and Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and those differences are noted on the pages where they matter.

Keep reading

Our advisersWhat a UK mortgage adviser is qualified to do, how a case is allocated, and what you can expect of the person named on your file.

Regulatory disclosuresScope of service, how we are paid, the protections that apply to you, and the statutory detail we are required to publish.

How to complainHow to raise a complaint, the timescales we work to under the FCA's rules, and your right to refer the matter onward.

Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. Figures shown on this site are illustrative estimates and do not constitute advice or an offer of credit.

Next step

See the whole mortgage before you sign it.

Fifteen minutes with an adviser gives you a borrowing range, a monthly cost and every fee attached to it. No credit check, no cost, no commitment.

Book a 15-minute call Run the numbers first

No credit check
No cost
No commitment