What does a mortgage broker do?

What does a mortgage broker do?

Our role as a mortgage broker is effectively to act as an intermediary. We connect you as the borrower with potential lenders.

So rather than you going up and down the high street speaking to different banks and building societies, working out what they’ll do for you in terms of borrowing and interest rates, you can come to us and have one conversation.

What’s the difference between going to a mortgage broker and your local high street lender?

It’s choice. We work with a large number of lenders, which just gives you more options. A lot of time and effort is involved in dealing with the banks directly. You’d have to go through their call centre, which can often take a long time in itself, and book an appointment. You often find that there’s a delay between trying to get your appointment and actually sitting down in front of a qualified advisor.

With a broker you can usually set up a call within a couple of days. It’s quicker to actually get in front of someone who can tell you what’s possible.

We also have access to a much wider range of lenders than you’d be able to access directly. You’ve just got one point of contact – one phone number, one email address. You just deal with that individual and we do all the running around for you.

We know which lenders to use given your circumstances that will offer you the most suitable deal. Lenders are constantly changing rates depending on their appetite for risk and how busy they are. They like to maintain service levels by introducing higher or lower rates – keeping abreast of that is quite challenging by yourself.

Most people are busy with their jobs. They don’t want to be doing all this research. They’d much rather offload it to us. They can sit back and relax, knowing they’ve got a broad range of options and they’re getting the most suitable deal possible.

How does the process work?

You have a conversation with us and we give you a bit of an overview. We then request documents from you and do a bit of research – then we present you with options.

From then on, we basically look after everything. We’ll do all the admin in the background – completing the application form, submitting it to lenders, packaging the case so they’ve got all the required documents, dealing with the underwriter to make sure they’ve got the responses to their questions.

We set up the mortgage valuation – we can liaise directly with the estate agent and then once the mortgage offer is made, making sure it goes to your solicitor. A lot of admin happens in the background that most people don’t want to do themselves or don’t know where to start.

Having someone on your side to handle all that for you in the background is very valuable.

What other services does a mortgage broker offer?

We also look after protection – life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection. We can also look at things like family income benefit.

The reason this is a focus for us as mortgage brokers is that we’re effectively arranging a vast amount of debt for you. It would be rather irresponsible for us to arrange that and not look at policies designed to protect you should the worst happen.

Life cover could pay off the mortgage if you or your partner dies, and not be left with a debt they can’t afford. Critical illness cover pays if you are diagnosed with a critical illness – you can use that lump sum for respite care or treatment, whatever it might be again. It eases the difficulties at a pretty tough time in your life.

Income protection means that you’ve got a guaranteed source of income should you be unable to work through accident or illness. An income protection policy could ensure that you can still maintain mortgage payments and keep your property if you’re unable to work.

The mortgage gets you in the house, then the protection is keeping you there. That’s a full service that we offer. We recommend to all our clients at the point of the mortgage offer that we have those conversations. We will look at what you have in place already, either privately or through your employer. It could be death in service or sick pay benefits that you’re entitled to. We’ll look at what cover you have and the potential shortfalls and quote you options to cover that shortfall.