DA brokers ‘short-changed’ by lenders

While many lenders store the data of a broker, regardless of which mortgage club they work through, some require the broker to re-enter their details each time they use a different club.

Dev Malle, director of mortgage distribution at Personal Touch Financial Services, believed some lenders had misjudged the impact of ‘Mortgage Day’ and now their systems could not deal easily with DA brokers.

“You would have thought lenders would make it easy for brokers to access them, especially in such a competitive market, but some of them have very antiquated systems which request DAs to resubmit their details each time they use a different mortgage club. This leaves many brokers left feeling out in the cold.”

James Carter, principal at Independent James, said he had not experienced such problems. “I’ve set up through loads of mortgage clubs but I haven’t encountered that problem. When I struck out on my own, it took a while to set up through the different agencies and while some didn’t give me the right CDs to install the right software, I didn’t encounter that problem.”

However, Daniel Clayden, director of Clayden Associates, said: “One thing which was a bit of a nightmare was some providers required me to register with each of the three mortgage clubs I work through. While some lenders give you a box to put all the mortgages clubs in, some require you to re-register for each club.”

Nigel Payne, managing director of The Mortgage Business, commented: “It’s totally dependent on the lender and how they register brokers. Even at HBOS we have different systems in place. However, I don’t think it matters whether the details are pre-populated or the broker has to re-register, but more about getting the right product and the right procuration fee. I can see the registration process getting quicker because of technology, but I don’t know if this will change.”