Average Mortgage Broker Fees in the United Kingdom [Jan 2025 Study]

Research Topic

The topic of mortgage broker fees is controversial among brokers. Many fee-free brokers that run remote businesses believe that mortgage brokers should not charge a fee in this day and age. As mortgage brokers always receive a commission from the lender, which is often comparable to a conveyancer’s legal fee, charging a further fee to the client may seem unjustified.

Even though many borrowers are opting for fee-free online mortgage advice, our aim is to update the market on the average mortgage broker fee charged to clients. Since the FCA introduced Consumer Duty Regulation in July 2023, many brokers have been forced to change their fee structures. The aim of the regulation was to ensure that consumers received good and fair outcomes. Prior to the regulation, firms could set a mortgage broker fee at their discretion. Whereas client fees must now be justified accordingly with the Consumer Duty regulation.

The objective of this research is to ascertain up-to-date figures on the Average Mortgage Broker Fees charged in major cities across the United Kingdom. We also hope to understand consumers’ perception of mortgage broker fees and how they have been charged.

The research is focused on homeowners that have either used a fee-charging broker for a residential purchase or refinancing transaction since July 2023.

Focusing on that type of respondent will ensure that we capture the full impact of changes in mortgage brokers’ fee structures following the introduction of Consumer Duty.

Research Sample

Download the full survey results in the footer of this article. The survey was conducted by TLF Research on behalf of Boon Brokers Limited with new residential homeowners across the following cities: Cardiff, Manchester, London, Sheffield, Belfast, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, Bristol, Birmingham, Southampton, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Leeds.

Targeted respondents are homeowners that bought or refinanced their property since July 2023 (following the introduction of Consumer Duty) and paid a mortgage broker fee.

Average Mortgage Broker Fees

We asked respondents to select the mortgage broker fee that they were charged to the nearest £100.00 up to £2,000.00 +. The most popular selections overall were:

£500.00 (13.6% of respondents)
£200.00 (13.1% of respondents)
£1,000.00 (10.2% of respondents)

According to our survey, the average mortgage broker fee in the UK is £500.00.

To find out the average mortgage broker fee for your city, use our widget below.

Purchase vs Remortgage Transactions

There is a difference between mortgage broker fees charged for Purchase and Remortgage Transactions. Our survey found that the most common selections for these transactions were:

Average Mortgage Broker Fee for Purchases

£200.00
£500.00
£1,000.00

Average Mortgage Broker Fee for Remortgages

£300.00
£500.00
£400.00

Broker Fee Payment Method

The Boon Brokers survey questioned consumers to ascertain how they made their broker fee payment. The key takeaways are:

Consumers’ Perception of Broker Fees

To understand consumers’ perception of broker fees, we asked additional questions that can be found in the survey results. Some key findings are:

Commentary on the Results

Prior to the introduction of Consumer Duty Regulation in July 2023, the Government’s Money Helper service highlighted that the average mortgage broker fee in the UK was likely to be £500.00. This average mortgage broker fee appears to be unchanged since Consumer Duty Regulation was adopted by brokers.

However, the results indicate that Consumer Duty is starting to have a positive impact on broker fee structures. As a result of the regulation, brokers must justify their charging model. As we can see from the survey findings, this has led to less broker fees being charged above £1,000.00. This is likely to be because such a fee is difficult to justify, especially when mortgage brokers receive commission from the lender in addition to this sum on completion.

One of the many interesting findings to highlight from the survey is that 36.6% of respondents paid a fee based on the percentage of the loan sum. As brokers must now justify their fee to ensure fair outcomes for consumers, it is difficult to understand how such a charging model is fair for consumers. Given that the loan sum is not correlated with a broker’s efforts in processing a case, charging on this basis seems unjust. Therefore, it is unsurprising that 67% of respondents disagree with the practice of mortgage brokers charging a fee based on the percentage of the loan sum.

We will update our research on the topic as more consumers experience a mortgage broker service following the recent Consumer Duty Regulation.