If you are a therapist then I will apologise in advance.
However, I think this is an important part of our job that people might miss.
A therapist, really?
Therapist might be a little too strong of a word. But when people sit down and talk about their hardest of times and open up. When we have crying and laughing all in the same conversation, I am not sure what else we can call it.
Let me give you a couple of examples, one is pre application and the other post (and both from the last 12 months).
Pre application therapy
We had a couple who had been through some problems. They had got through it and worked everything out, but their bank statements gave a visible picture that there had been a separation. The customers did not make us aware of the separation, but we needed to understand the situation in case the underwriter asked down the line. We also needed to ensure their situation fit criteria with the lender. We asked about some of the transactions and before I knew it I was on the phone until gone 7pm with the lady crying down the phone telling me about the last 6 months.
This is fine, I am glad she felt comfortable enough to open up and in all honesty she is not the first or the last. She was worried it might make the lender think they are not a stable family unit and if I picked up on it, she wanted to hold off to avoid getting declined. Her anxiety was through the roof.
We talked everything through for about 2-3 hours. We had tears, laughing and then at the end of it all I was able to offer reassurance… Not enough to stop her worrying, but enough to believe we would get it over the line. At the end of the call she joked that she felt like she had got everything off her chest and felt loads better.
They have now moved and everything is fine – they are still together and a happy family.
The underwriter did pick up on the same transactions and asked the same questions we asked. We were able to explain it all to the underwriter there and then. Had we not delved deeper, the outcome would still have been the same, but it would have taken a little longer as we would have had to ask the customer then go back to the underwriter and then wait for them to pick up the case again – we shaved about 4-5 days off the process by asking the difficult questions upfront.
Post application therapy
This example is linked to a bit I wrote here about arguing with a mortgage lender.
As you can imagine, if your mortgage broker is having to argue with a mortgage lender something has not gone quite as it should. There are probably concerns that if you annoy the underwriter they might pull your mortgage offer or cancel your application.
This is where having the time to spend with customers comes in to play. I called the customers a few times throughout these 2 weeks and explained where everything was up to. Told them I have my boxing gloves on and tried to make light of the situation but at the same time acknowledging there was a bit of a problem but we would get through it as we are right.
This one might be clutching at “therapy”, reassurance and hand holding is probably a little more accurate.
Again, we got the outcome we were after. But when you get a decline, I imagine the first thing is to panic and look for another lender. However our view is that we have done a thorough job. We know everything fits, we are going to argue this outcome as we do not submit applications on a whim, we do it expecting the right outcome.
Conclusion
Sometimes we make applications and we expect them to fly through. Your employed, decent deposit, no bad credit – all good?
What could go wrong? In 99% of applications, nothing. But every now and again even the most straight forward of applications have problems. This year alone we have had:
- One of the vendors in prison, refusing to sign the paperwork to sell the property.
- An offer with wording that would make getting buildings insurance difficult – getting the lender to remove that was fun and took 2-3 weeks!
- A valuation which has come back as zero.
- Searches (at the legal stage) where it has been picked up homes will be built in a field behind the house. Not disclosed by the agents and then trying to bully the applicant to make a shady deal on a handshake.
- A war which has resulted in mortgage products being pulled at a moments notice.
And those are just in 2026!
Problems arise all the time, they can arise on even the most straight forward of applications. It can sometimes to easy to lay blame at someone’s feet but there are times where it is just one of those things and nobody is to blame. But what matters is that you have someone on your side to help you pick up the pieces and either get it back on track or make the best of a bad situation and get on with Plan B.
If you have a broker, you can pick up the phone to your broker and ask them a million questions. If you do not have a broker, you are relying on friends, family, the agents (who work for the seller) or maybe chatgpt – would you not rather get help from a professional who knows your situation in detail rather than getting generic information?
Which is likely to help with those anxiety levels the most? A therapi…Broker!