Well that is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. You may be a plumber - most of us can't even change a washer! A teacher? We'd run a mile if you put us in front of a crowd of kids! What we are trying to say is simply this - 'each person to his or her trade'. Ours happens to be mortgages - and as we've been doing this job for a long time we've got to know a bit about it.

A mortgage is (in language that we all understand) security which you give to a building society or other lender in return for them making a loan (commonly known as a mortgage to confuse matters no end) of money which they will only give if they have such security.

Whilst you might think that your word that you will repay the loan ought to be good enough, unfortunately lenders have found from bitter experience over the years that this doesn't work out with everyone! So what the building societies and other lenders do is advance you the money, but in return you give them the security of the house (it could be land. cars or oil paintings etc) but we are only talking here about mortgages on property. In the ultimate if you don't repay what you owe, the lender could, in theory, enforce its security and take possession of the property. In practice this very rarely happens, of course.

So where do you start? Remember - a mortgage is normally a very major financial commitment, so it is important that you get things right. Have a look at the faq's on the website and pick out those which particularly affect you. We've tried to cover as many matters as possible, but even so there may be something which we haven't explained adequately or which we have left out altogether. We are always glad to learn from our mistakes and shortcomings - please let us know if there is some aspect of the mortgage process that we haven't covered.

If you like, have a brief chat on the ‘phone with us to outline your requirements and we can tell you there and then how (normally) we can help to put your plans into motion. If for any reason we can't help at all, we will do our utmost to make some positive suggestions to you - there is no question of our adopting a ‘sorry we can't help - goodbye' approach.

Alternatively, and this is our preferred method, you can complete the enquiry form which you will find on the site. This may look a bit daunting at first sight but it does give us all the information we need to make positive suggestions and provide appropriate product illustrations to you.

Then again, if you want to send us an e mail - either to ask questions, or advice, that's fine by us too.

A brief telephone chat can often set the ball rolling, and if this is your preferred method of contact we are always good listeners. In fact we spend an awful lot of time on the phone and if our lines are engaged please leave a message on the voicemail and we will get back to you just as soon as we can

We want to help