Our awards are decided by the only votes that really matter – yours. We asked customers of all the major mortgage providers to tell us about their experiences. Now we can reveal how they rated the UK’s mortgage lenders.
The winning and highly commended companies were decided by both their overall customer satisfaction scores (star ratings out of five) and their recommendation scores (the percentage of survey respondents who would recommend the brand to a friend). Read more on our methodology and see our full results below.
Now without any further ado, here are our winners (*applause please*)…
L&C Mortgages topped our customer satisfaction survey with the joint best customer satisfaction score (4.5 out of 5) and had the highest number of customers recommending it (an impressive 93%).
L&C is the UK’s largest fee-free mortgage broker and offers access to over 90 lenders. Its wide range of mortgages and great customer service made it a winner in this year’s awards.
Nationwide also scored 4.5 stars out of 5 in our customer satisfaction survey and polled a “would recommend” score of 84%, earning the building society a high commendation.
Nationwide is the UK’s second largest mortgage lender. It provides a broad selection of mortgages and is consistently rated highly for its level of customer service.
Compare mortgages from Nationwide
| Overall satisfaction | Customers who’d recommend | Issuer | Review | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ★★★★★ | 93% |  | L&C is the country’s largest fee-free mortgage broker. With access to over 90 lenders, it is able to advise on a vast choice of mortgages depending on a borrower’s personal circumstances, and has racked up an impressive 93% “would recommend” score from the customers we surveyed. | Visit broker |
| ★★★★★ | 84% |  | As the UK’s second largest mortgage provider, the building society offers a wide range of fixed rate and tracker products. Founded in 1846 as a mutual financial institution, Nationwide is run for the benefit of its members, and consistently ranks highly for customer service. | Compare with broker |
| ★★★★★ | 80% |  | Now part of Lloyds Banking Group, Halifax offers one of the largest number of mortgages from a single lender, particularly in the fixed-rate space. Not always the top ranked for competitive rates, the bank does poll well for customer service. | Compare with broker |
| ★★★★★ | 80% |  | As with its sister brand Halifax, Lloyds lists an extensive range of mortgages, particularly fixed-term deals lasting two, three, five or 10 years. It lends on loan-to-value (LTV) ratios of up to 95% and is recommended by four out of five customers in our survey. | Compare with broker |
| ★★★★★ | 79% |  | The UK’s biggest bank is not one of the UK’s biggest mortgage lenders, with fewer specialist products in its range. But HSBC does offer fixed and variable mortgages at rates that are consistently among the most competitive. | Compare with broker |
| ★★★★★ | 79% |  | NatWest is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group and has a wide range of mortgages available, including offset products. The bank will consider applications from all would-be borrowers on a case-by-case basis and its online features are often praised by customers. | Compare with broker |
| ★★★★★ | 79% |  | Santander is another provider offering 95% mortgages to first-time homebuyers, and often ranks highly in best-rates tables. The bank’s customer service performance also generally polls well. | Compare with broker |
| ★★★★★ | 73% |  | Virgin Money first began operating as a bank in 2010, developing its mortgage and saving products before its current account. Predominantly online-based, in 2019 the lender was the first in the UK to launch a 15-year fixed term mortgage. | Compare with broker |
| ★★★★★ | 63% |  | The bank mainly offers fixed rate mortgages, along with some tracker products. While Barclays often has leading rates, only around two-thirds of customers we surveyed would recommend the lender from a customer service point of view. | Compare with broker |
| ★★★★★ | 57% |  | The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is part of the same banking group as NatWest. Although RBS has a decent range of different mortgage products available, including offset mortgages, it does have mixed customer service reviews. | Compare with broker |
We asked mortgage holders to rate their satisfaction with the service they had received from their lender, and also whether they would recommend their mortgage provider to a friend. Our independent survey of 750 mortgage customers was carried out in December 2019 – read full details of our methodology here.
We have shown both results for the brands listed in the table above, and used these ratings to decide the winners of our awards (where there was a draw on the star ratings score, we used the “would recommend” percentage as a tie-breaker).
★★★★★ — Excellent
★★★★★ — Good
★★★★★ — Average
★★★★★ — Subpar
★★★★★ — Poor
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