The main advantages of using a Mortgage Advisor is that they have current knowledge and tools to help you select a good mortgage product. They will also help you apply for the mortgage and help you with queries etc the lender may have. On the otherhand, it is important to be aware of certain issues relating to Financial Advisors, or you can end up with a poor mortgage.

Financial Advisors are either 'tied', 'multi-tied' or 'independent'. Tied advisors offer products from a single lender. Multi-tied advisors offer products from a number of lenders, but not all. In practice, they tend of offer products form 6 to 10 lenders. Independent Financial Advisors can offer products from ALL lenders. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) stipulate that they should inform you of their status.

Be aware that multi-tied financial Advisors may use a formulation of words to give one the impression that they are independent, such as "we can offer a wide range of products from UK mortgage lenders" - 'a wide range' is a very subjective term, and probably does not mean 'entire range'.

Also, you should be aware of is that you can either pay for this Financial Advice, or use a free Financial Advisor, and there can be difficulties with both of these help sources for the unwary customers.

The problem with the paid advisors is that they can be expensive.

More seriously, free advisors may not always offer impartial advice. This can happen because they are paid by the mortgage lenders, and as different mortgage lenders pay different level of commission, the advisor may have an (improper) bias towards recommending products offered by banks paying higher commissions.

Furthermore, some banks do not offer any commission to brokers/Financial Advisors. This can be an issue for those using Independent Advisors (because multi-tied Financial Advisors would not offer such products in any case) because the Independent Advisor may not want to tell you about these products or lenders. The FSA require them to tell you about such products, but they are not under obligation to organise the mortgage.