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Brokers accuse lenders of "stealing our thunder"

ended 28. February 2025

Brokers are increasingly fuming at the fact some lenders tell their clients that they have been accepted for a mortgage before they are able to - often via text message or email. Newspage asked brokers of this is cricket, whether it should be stopped and is it industry-wide or just limited to selected lenders? Views below.

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Pete Mugleston
Mortgage Advisor & Managing Director at onlinemortgageadvisor.co.uk
It’s frustrating when lenders inform clients before brokers, as it can cause confusion and undermine our role in securing the mortgage. Brokers guide clients through the process, ensuring the best deal and suitability, so being the last to know feels unfair. While not all lenders do this, it does seem to be happening more and more. Transparency and communication should be prioritised—clients should hear from their broker first to maintain trust and clarity. The focus should be on collaboration, not lenders taking the credit for what is ultimately a broker-driven success.
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Steve Humphrey
Adviser & Founder at The Mortgage Pod
"Stealing our thunder” springs to mind. Not only do lenders provide major updates to our clients, but sometimes they get the text even before us brokers are notified. This can really take the sting out of our efforts, to be honest, and it’s not a great feeling. There’s no worse reply from a client to our “congratulations, your mortgage offer has been issued” message than “yes, I know.” It can be six weeks or more of communication back and forth with mortgage lenders and clients to make home mortgage arrangements possible. I feel we should be the ones who deserve to deliver the great news and results of our efforts. Hopefully, lenders can engage with their clients (us brokers) to ensure we can get this changed.
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Justin Moy
Managing Director at EHF Mortgages
Arguably it is the best part of our profession, to share the great news that the mortgage has been offered and that our clients can progress towards their new home ownership. And I think the key here is that these are 'our' clients, we choose the lender and product based on our conversations and relationship with 'our' client, and we are here to hold 'our' clients' hand throughout. They turn to us for help, direction and progress throughout the process. To have that moment of jubilation somewhat spoilt by the lender makes it difficult for brokers, as we haven't had the chance to check it for accuracy, and importantly it can shift the relationship from us to the lender just at the wrong time. We work hard as brokers to deliver a great experience with our clients: let's not spoil it please lenders.
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Michelle Lawson
Director at Lawson Financial
Lenders can't pick and choose when they contact customers and they certainly shouldn't be the glory takers but expect us to deliver bad news. I bet lenders wouldn't be so keen as to text when they decline the mortgage or when there is a down-valuation. When the text goes to the customer at the point of offer it can often generate an immediate call from the borrower before we have even had the opportunity to check it is all correct. They could also have questions to raise off the back of it. Maybe delay the contact until the day after and give us a fighting chance.