At Charcol, you have two ways to find the right mortgage:

You can use our clever online search systems to help you choose the right mortgage from over 36 lenders and then submit your application online It only takes about 5 minutes. Search Now

Alternatively, let our mortgage advisers do it all for you, over the telephone.  We’ll select the right mortgage from the whole of the market, and manage your application through to completion. Call us on 0800 066 5570.

Charcol's size enables us to offer special mortgage rates from the mainstream lenders, only available to our customers. We often have Best Buys or exclusive products that aren't available directly from the lender or from other brokers. This is one of the advantages of using a broker to find a mortgage rather than going directly to your lender. Currently a £75 booking fee will be charged for all exclusive and semi-exclusive mortgages.

When your application reaches us, you will immediately get an email message back telling you that your application has been successfully sent to our Mortgage Associates.

If you do not receive this e-mail, we may not have received your application. Please contact us before you send it again.

You will almost always need to arrange buildings insurance when you take out your mortgage. The lender will often offer you their own policy, or you can shop around for the best deal from other insurers. We have some of the best rates available right here.

Compulsory insurance is where the lender insists that you buy their own house and contents cover as part of the mortgage deal. The DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) has criticised lenders for making compulsory insurance a condition of a mortgage offer.

As a result, some lenders have stopped this practice but others have got round it by quoting two interest rates: a headline rate if you take their insurance and a more expensive rate (usually about 0.25% higher) if you don't.

Charcol will always tell you if the lender you are looking at insists you buy buildings and contents insurance from them (and you can exclude such 'compulsory' products if you wish when you use our find a mortgage facility.

If you realise you've made a mistake on your application and it's just a typing error or spelling mistake, don't worry. Just contact us and we'll correct your application for you.  We send all documentation by email so we’ll send back the amended form to you for authorisation.

If there are any other errors they should be picked up by our online system before you make your application.  Failing that, our Mortgage Associate Team should find them when they check your application.  If you realise you've made a mistake contact us straight away and we'll endeavour to correct it before we send your application.

You don't need to include day-to-day spending such as food and utility bills in the "monthly outgoings" section of your application. You need only include loans that have more than 6 months left before you pay them off and loans that are secured on your property. You don't have to include household bills such as electricity, gas and groceries.

When your Mortgage Associate first emails you, they'll include a full list of the supporting documentation needed by the lender you have chosen. Each lender has different requirements (and they even vary by product and circumstance of the loan).

Typically, the documents you might need to provide include: three months of payslips; bank statements; proof of identity; proof of address; proof of deposit; existing mortgage statement (if applicable) and business accounts if you are self-employed.

We will ask you to send us the original documents (the lender requires that we verify that we have seen the originals), which we will copy and return by recorded delivery post. We aim to get your documents back in the post to you the day after we receive them, so you shouldn't be without the originals for more than a few days.

Your confidential information is encrypted, which means only our own servers can read the material as it goes across the Internet. The site is encrypted over a 128-bit SSL connection and is guaranteed using a Verisign certificate.

The gold secure site padlock will appear on your screen when you enter the secure pages of our application - the only time your confidential information is transmitted online. If you have an older browser version, you can review our site security under your security settings, accessed from the file menu.

Applying for a mortgage online is a big decision. It's important to be confident of the security of both the site and the company you are dealing with.

Our online service has been in operation since November 1999. We're the UK's leading online mortgage broker and have helped thousands of UK home owners to apply for their mortgage since our launch.

Unlike some other online mortgage services who sub-contract the administration of their mortgage applications to another company, we handle every application we receive within our own team. As soon as we receive your application, we assign a dedicated member of our team to your case, who is backed up by a 'buddy' in case they are ill or away. That means you can always talk to someone who is familiar with your case. You'll have their work contact details - phone and email - to get in touch when you need to.

Your Mortgage Associate will follow your application through from start to finish and tackle any problems which arise on the way. They'll contact you by email or phone to let you know of progress and whether they need more information from you.

Here at Charcol, we've looked through and compared a vast range of mortgages from the leading providers in the UK. We've picked out the mortgages we were most impressed with and have made them available to you online. That means you're getting a choice of what we think are the very best products out there at the moment.

We have access to over 800 mortgages from 36+ lenders. We don't have all the mortgages in the UK, as there are more than 4,000 available at any one time, which would be too many to choose from.

We regularly review our list to make sure it still includes the top players and products. We remove those that are less good value, and ensure that we have some of the new companies on the market. We aim to have market-leading lenders on the site, so that you can compare the High Street names with some of the more specialist lenders.

You could use our site to find the right mortgage, and then apply directly to the lender. However, this won't normally save you money - and in fact it could be cheaper through us!

And, many of our mortgage exclusives are not available directly from the lender.

Our aim is to provide you with top quality service from a dedicated team and we have worked hard to speed up the application process. We believe you will find it a more rewarding (and less stressful!) experience to let us help you through the mortgage and home buying maze.

We would be happy to sign up every lender and all the products on the mortgage market if we felt it was adding any value. However, the mortgage market is very congested, We use our experience in the mortgage broking market to bring you what we think are currently the best deals available.

Yes. Our experts will select the right mortgage for you and manage your application through to completion free of charge.

Contact us for further details.