Terms of business

About us

Switchrates.com is a trading style of Lambridge Finance, whose offices are situated at 18 The Chestnuts, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14 3YN. Lambridge Finance is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the independent watchdog that regulates financial services. Our Financial Services Register number is 302857 and you can check us out on the FCA web site where we can be found on the Financial Services Register. The FCA has authorised us for advising and arranging regulated mortgage contracts and advising and arranging regulated insurance contracts. We also offer Buy to Let Mortgages (which are not regulated by the FCA), Bridging Finance (which may be regulated by the FCA depending upon the circumstances) and Will Writing.

Our scope of service - mortgages

We only offer first charge mortgages from all lenders. We are not dependent on any particular lender and we regularly review the market to ensure that our list of lenders remains competitive. We do not arrange second charge mortgages but we may be able to introduce you to a firm that offers these types of regulated mortgages if you require.

We will advise you about first charge legal mortgages and make a recommendation about a mortgage for you after we have assessed your needs.

For assessing your eligibility for mortgages and/or other products available from the lenders and product providers that we deal with.

Our scope of service - insurances

We will advise and make a recommendation for you after we have assessed your needs for buildings and contents insurance, for payment protection insurance, for life insurance and for critical illness cover, for legal expenses We offer products from a range of insurers for buildings and contents insurance, for payment protection insurance, for life insurance and for critical illness cover, for legal expenses.

Data protection & marketing

We will use the information that you give us in order to obtain financial products for you where you are eligible. In order to do this we will need to share your information with other parties such as mortgage lenders and insurance providers. We may also share this information with other bodies in order to combat financial fraud and with our regulators and with third parties for compliance purposes. We will provide you with a copy of our firm’s Privacy Notice when we first meet with you. This will explain how we use your personal information and will require you to sign and give us your consent to hold and process your personal information.

We will treat your personal information confidentially even if you are no longer a client of ours. If you require details of the information that we hold about you, please contact us on our office address and we will assist you in this. Under the data Protection Act, you have the right of access to any data that our firm holds about you. If you wish to withdraw your consent for us to process your data, you can do so by writing to us at our office address.

We may also contact you from time to time in relation to the products that we have provided to you. We will only do this where you consent to us contacting you and this is one of the matters that you will be able to confirm in the Privacy Notice that we will issue to you. If you do not provide us with your consent, we will be unable to contact you.

Our fees

We will not normally charge you a fee for arranging a mortgage transfer. If however we are unable to arrange a transfer with your existing lender we may charge a fee for arranging a mortgage with a different lender. We will only do this after we have explained the fee and when it is payable by you. We would normally charge a fee of £500 which is due when an offer is made by the lender and payable on completion of the mortgage. Our fee is not refundable.

We will receive commission from the lender that we place your mortgage with. The amount of this commission will be set out in the illustration that we will provide to you when we make our recommendation and this will include any other fees payable to the lender or to any other parties. Different lenders may pay differing amounts of commission on mortgages placed with them. We can provide you with further details on comparative commission rates on request. You will receive an illustration when considering a particular mortgage, which will tell you about any fees relating to it.

We do not charge a fee for arranging your insurance policies as we will be paid commissions by the provider. The details and amounts of these commissions will be included in any insurance illustration that we provide to you.

Free Gift terms and conditions

From time to time we run a “Free Gift” offer. These are the terms and conditions that govern those promotions:

  • The free gift cannot be substituted for any other item, cash or credit.
  • From time to time we may offer restaurant promotions. Gift cards can be used to pay for food and drink, dine in and takeaway. Gift card expiry dates vary but will be a minimum of 12 months.
  • One gift card per successful product switch.
  • This offer is only available on product transfers initiated on our website, switchrates.com.
  • The free gift will be dispatched within 24 hours of your successful product switch.
  • In the event of any dispute, the decision of Switchrates.com is final.

We reserve the right to amend these terms and conditions at any time.

If you want to complain

We would expect our dealings with you to pass without problem but in the unlikely event that you wish to register a complaint, please contact us.

If you cannot settle your complaint with us, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Where your complaint relates to how we handle your personal information you are also able to complain to the Information Commissioners Office.

Financial Services Compensation Scheme

We are covered by the FSCS. You may be entitled to compensation from the scheme if we cannot meet our obligations. This depends upon the type of business and the circumstances of the claim.

Mortgage advising and arranging is covered for 100% of £50,000.

Insurance advising and arranging is covered for 90% of the claim with no upper limit.

For compulsory classes of insurance, insurance advising and arranging is covered for 100% of the claim, without any upper limit.

Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the FSCS.

Other matters

If you are looking to increase the borrowing on your existing home, you should be aware of the following points:

  • You will not be eligible for a product transfer.
  • You may be able to obtain a further advance from your existing lender.
  • You may be able to secure second charge finance.
  • You may be able to obtain unsecured loans.

We are not recommending these alternatives but are required by law to make you aware of them.