This post is following the request of a customer. Although having struggled with covid myself I fully understand why this might be something people look for.
I thought then it would be useful to explain that we can provide covid safe mortgage appointments.
Lets go back a little bit… Around 12 months before covid hit we noticed that a lot of our customers were not local. We have customers down in Brighton and up in Scotland. It is not really possible to meet those customers as they are too far away, but in terms of getting signatures and paperwork it was a bit of a nightmare back then, the technology was still not widely accepted.
We developed a system that allowed us to get signatures electronically online from our customers and the same for verifying ID etc. This meant that it was quite simple for us to help those customers who we did not meet face to face. Funnily enough we were just testing the system in late February into March 2020. As lockdowns came we were more or less happy with the system we had in place.
How can we offer covid safe mortgage advice?
That meant as lockdowns came we were able to work with customers to get signatures and paperwork together. We were not reliant on customers going to the post office or coming in to see us. All they needed was the internet and a camera on their phone! In effect all of our customers became non face to face customers overnight.
We were obviously not planning for covid, but when it came we were ready. It just meant all of customers went through the process we had been working on the 12 months prior rather than it just being the customers further afield.
How are we Covid Safe?
We are able to offer covid safe mortgage appointments as:
- We can work remotely – even if you are next door to us!
- All of our paperwork can be signed electronically – we actually do this for all of our customers now as it also makes our life easier.
- We can verify documents electronically – so no need to even go to the post office*
- *The slight exception to the above is if the lender requires something outside of the norm. In reality this very rarely happens, it may have only happened with us once or twice in the last 10 years.
Summary
Having struggled with covid myself (I spent about 2 months in bed and then another 2 months being able to get around but unable to work) I fully understand your concerns. I appreciate it can be a contentious issue at the best of times. However we are happy to work with you as much as possible to make life easier.
You will not need to mask up, you do not even have to leave your home. Everything can be done via phone and email.