Challenging Lending Criteria

The life of a mortgage broker is seldom as simple as most people think.

It’s the reason why, increasingly, our clients choose/ return to our services.

Our team of Advisors and Admin take the hassle and stress out of sourcing a mortgage and finding the right insurance products. Which is why when a spanner appears in the works, it definitely pays to have an expert with industry knowledge and know-how. You see, it pays to have someone who knows how to get you what you need, on your team. Sometimes we’ll even challenge lending criteria, especially when we can’t see any obvious logic. It’s not done on a whim either, when we challenge a piece of criteria we ensure that we do so from a place of knowledge, client interest and also with the help of other industry experts. Last week Cameron and the team of mortgage advisors did exactly that.

As of the 1st February 2022 it became the law in Scotland for all fire alarms to be interlinked.  For the majority of new-builds this is already standard whether it’s a house or flat (https://tinyurl.com/2sej3cs2). As we submitted a mortgage application (having done our research) the lender flagged an issue at the valuation stage.   The lender asked the property surveyor to confirm if the alarms are in fact interlinked.  The surveyor replied: that it is not within its remit.  The application is now stalled as the lender doesn’t find that to be a satisfactory answer.  There’s definitely been some frustrations voiced by Cameron and the team of mortgage advisors around this.  If a fire alarm is interlinked then it’s easy to test as you push a button and it sounds the alarm.  But why would the onus fall on the surveyor to do so?  Some would shrug their shoulders and start to research other options for the client.  However, this deal is truly the best for our client and to go elsewhere would not be in their best interest.  Firstly, Cameron called the lender and spoke at length with the sales and underwriting teams to understand the issue better.  Having gained an understanding, Cameron set about problem solving.

For those of you who’ve dealt with Cameron, you’ll know that Cameron always approaches a problem indirectly.  In this instance he asked the lender to provide a solution to their criteria. What do they want to see that would satisfy their requirement?  They were unable to do so, which considering it’s their criteria, makes it very odd. Secondly, Cameron and our team spoke with other surveyors.  Had they encountered it?  What did they do?  Asking those who work within the property field cast our net wider in finding a solution. And even with a wider net cast, nobody had encountered this situation…yet.  However it raised awareness and we got vital information and feedback from surveyors on how to proceed.

Thirdly, Cameron took the issue higher up the managerial ladder with the lender.  It isn’t to cause any trouble but, the issue needs to be addressed.  When challenging criteria our team of mortgage and protection advisors do so with our clients best intentions at the root of it.   This has taken considerable time and effort to get thus far.  We’re confident to get an outcome that is positive for all parties.  But also an outcome that will ensure no other person has to be confused over interlinked fire alarms again.  So keep your eyes on our blog for the next update.