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Specialist lender service levels

Journalist: Anna Sagar, Mortgage Solutions / Specialist Lending Solutions

ended 03. August 2022

Looking to speak to mortgage brokers about their experience with specialist lenders and their service levels. 

  1. How have you found specialist lender service levels in recent months? How do they compare to mainstream lenders and have they changed over recent months?
  2. Are there any specific areas of specialist lending that have more challenged lender service levels and why?
  3. What can specialist lenders do to improve or maintain their service levels?
  4. Would you recommend specialist lenders to a client currently?

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Marcus Wright
Managing Director at Bolton Business Finance
Generally speaking, working with specialist lenders is a far better experience than dealing with high street and mainstream lenders. They are faster, more flexible with underwriting and much easier to get hold of for updates. With most of the specialist lenders we use, you can pick up the phone and speak to somebody straight away and get an update instantly.
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Rob Peters
Principal at Simple Fast Mortgage
It's often Russian Roulette between selecting the best deal or the best service. Rarely the two meet and it's a constantly shifting landscape so seeking expert advice is key. As a specialist mortgage adviser we're very active in this area. A lender will bring a competitive product to market and then inevitably be swamped with new applications which they don't have the systems, processes or staff to deal with. And this is where the wheels fall off the wagon. The lender struggles to push through the vast number of applications received. And of course all these applications are complex and take more time to assess, but the underwriters are under pressure and mistakes are make. The adviser, after waiting weeks for a case to be assessed, finds that the assessment contains an error whereby the underwriter has not understood a key aspect of the application. This initial incorrect assessment compounds the issue, both for the end client and the lender. The adviser challenges the assessment which takes more weeks to be assessed again creating a further delay for the client and increasing the number of queries the lender is receiving causing more havoc to their service levels. With the market being dominated by sellers this can put the buyer in a dire position. Delays result in purchases falling through. Property prices increase, and sellers go back to market to find a more stable buyer, and likely higher price. Depending on the timeframe available, a client may opt to go for a more expensive mortgage product in order to have the best chance of getting the deal though in time. Knowledge of lenders and timeframes is essential.
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Mark Hosker
Mortgage Adviser at Cyborg Finance
I can only presume specialist lenders have better service levels as they have better recruitment and retention.
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Graham Cox
Director at Bridging Hub
On the whole, niche lenders and smaller building societies tend to have better service levels than the big high street names. But that's not always the case. Often it just comes down to the volume of applications the lender is dealing with. In fact, just in the last week, one smaller lender who was getting swamped put their rates up to slow things down, but it didn't work. Applications continued to flood in, and they have now been forced to temporarily pull all their mortgage products.