THOSE seeking mortgages are not always being made aware of the true best deals on offer, experts have warned.

Many low-rate mortgage offers may look attractive at first, but they often come with high upfront fees, which are buried in confusing small print, according to analysis of leading deals from more than 70 lenders.

Mortgage broker Trussle, which oversaw the study, is now calling for lenders to make the true cost of a loan clear.

The firm believes that too often potential borrowers are misled.

According to Ishaan Malhi, chief executive of Trussle, a lack of transparency is causing undue stress for borrowers.

He said that many become tied into deals, paying out much more than they would under other offers on the market.

Deals that seem good at first are sometimes revealed to be “overrated”.

“The way that mortgages are being displayed is at best inconsistent and at worst misleading,” he said.

“Borrowers are enticed into making decisions based on low headline rates rather than true cost, and can end up paying out more than they would on other available deals. Simply put, mortgage rates are overrated.”

The analysis shows that some of the “lowest-rate deals” become less attractive when ranked by true cost.

Mr Malhi added: “If lenders can agree on a method for calculating the true cost of deals and make this information clearly available to borrowers, the market would become far more transparent and would function better for everyone as a result.”