You pay us nothing. The bank does.
That is the whole answer — and still the question we are asked most often. Here is who pays whom, what that means for our advisory service, and how you can tell that we can afford to advise you against a purchase. Working with an independent mortgage advisor means no single bank's product is pushed by default.
How it works
For arranging a mortgage in Germany, the lending bank pays a brokerage commission. You pay no fee for our advice, the comparison across lenders, the preparation of your file or the support through to disbursement.
If no financing comes about, you owe us nothing either. We carry the work ourselves — that is the price of taking on cases others will not touch.
Important: the bank's commission is already contained in the terms you receive through us. You therefore do not pay more than if you approached the same bank directly — in practice usually less, because we select from a far wider field.
„So you recommend whichever bank pays you best."
A fair suspicion. Three reasons it does not work that way:
- The spread is small, the risk is not. Commission rates across lenders differ only slightly. A financing that does not hold costs us the case — and the reputation.
- Difficult cases are our business. We do not live on the standard case anyone can place, but on constellations where only a handful of lenders qualify at all. There is no choosing by commission — there is the bank that takes the case, or none.
- We also say no. If a financing does not hold, we earn nothing and tell you anyway.
What you actually pay — and to whom
Costs do arise when buying property in Germany. They just do not arise with us. You pay third parties:
| Item | Paid to | When |
|---|---|---|
| Property transfer tax | Tax office (rate set by each federal state) | after notarisation |
| Notary and land registry | Notary, local court | after notarisation |
| Estate agent commission (if any) | Estate agent | on the purchase contract |
| Valuation / survey | Bank or surveyor | during underwriting |
| Arranging the mortgage | paid by the bank | — |
These purchase costs are generally not financeable and must come from your own funds. That is where most financings fail in the planning stage — not on the interest rate.
When the fee question comes up
Most clients ask about fees either right at the start, before sharing any documents, or much later, once an offer is already on the table — both are the right moment to ask, and the answer does not change depending on timing. Asking early never counts against you in how carefully a case is handled, and it does not slow anything down; if anything, clarity on cost upfront tends to speed up the rest of the conversation, because it removes one recurring source of hesitation before it can build up.