Every now and again I make a post on extra things a broker brings to the table. Its usually done on the back of a “what is the best interest rate you can get” phone call… Those in themselves are interesting as the cheapest rates usually come with fees. You have to weigh up whether going for the lowest rate is the cheapest overall – but thats a whole other post.
This post is about where a broker adds value. What I have done since the start of August is to collate a few things that have cropped up along the way that you would not think of and if they did crop up, without a broker, what would you do?
We deal with the Underwriters
Earlier this month I had a case in for a client who is NHS bank staff. Because the very nature of NHS bank staff is that the work is temporary and you just pick up the hours you want there is no contract.
On 5 occasions the underwriter asked for… a copy of his contract! First 2 times I added a note to the application to say there is no contract. They came back again asking for the same thing, this time I spoke to an account manager to try to resolve it, the request came AGAIN! So again I asked our account manager to deal with… And then for the 5th time they requested it. At this point, I got quite annoyed, asked to speak to a manager to get it resolved and we finally got there.
What I thought was interesting with this was what would you as a customer do? I know before I was a broker I would have panicked and started to think my application would get declined. I never actually told the client any of this was happening until we had it resolved and the mortgage offer in hand.
Customer enquires about their chain
Ordinarily you would expect the customer to speak to the estate agents about this. But because it involved a mortgage they came to me. A landlord was raising money against their own home for the deposit. This caused a bit of a delay and started to stress out the clients. They called me to ask if what they had been told was correct. They were unsure who else they could ask and so a quick phone call and we were able to put their mind at ease.
We also help when the Bank of England get involved…
Rates have come down, can I get one of the new cheaper products? So, the answer to this is not quite straight forward. With many lenders the answer is yes. With some lenders it would be subject to a new credit check. If that fails, then your current mortgage offer would also be pulled, which means there is a risk. Other lenders would say no and would need a full new application.
But we can help you navigate that, in a world a rate changes up and down at the moment, this is quite important to ensure you are not missing out on lower rates.
Solicitors requests
Solicitors sometimes request things. On this occasion it was a signed mortgage offer and a DD mandate. The client could not find either. Understandable with the signed mortgage offer as there isnt one. Most mortgage lenders no longer require a signature on the mortgage offer. They tend to work on the assumption that if you proceeded with the legal work and draw down on the money, then you are happy to accept it.
But as a customer would you know that? Would you stress/panic at not being able to find it? Maybe sit on the phone to the mortgage lender for 20-60 minutes? Or would you whatsapp your mortgage broker and ask them?
We also emailed over the DD mandate as we keep a copy on file.
Does that add value?
I think it does.
Does it add enough value to cover our fee? Thats for you to decide. Our standard fee is £500 (only charged on full offer), but we may charge more or less depending on your circumstances. We can run through that though and confirm our fee before proceeding.
Nobody knows in advance which application will be the awkward one. We have applications we expect to be a nightmare and they actually fly through. Likewise we also have applications which we expect to be fine, but between underwriters, solicitors, agents or even the customers themselves there ends up being a problem.
One thing myself and Matt are very big on is that we want you to contact us if you are stuck. Dont stress and panic, dont spend hours on the phone, call us. We might know the answer, after doing this job for coming up to 15 years now, there is not much we have not come across.