Added value of a broker

Glastoun

How much do brokers communicate with a lender before putting in an application? My broker asked for lots of information - about previous employment, specific dates and salaries, our additional property and its value, what we intended to do with it after we'd bought etc - that didn't end up on the application form. I got the impression that they were in conversation with the lender from our initial call to putting in the application, so they could gauge the likelihood of success, but would this actually be the case?

Our lender asked for very sparse supporting documentation (e.g. no bank statements, just payslip and P60), and I'm hoping they're happy with what they know about us and just need to double-check things, rather than coming back for more and more information.

ACG

We as brokers have to have enough information to be able to "know your customer".
The information we get covers off everything we would need for 99% of applications - enabling us to firstly discuss your circumstances with the lender but also not having to come back to you every time we need something extra - its all down on paper in one hit.

Let_Us_See

Agree with ACG only doing his job properly. The more information he/she has the easier it is to select a lender and appropriate mortgage scheme.

Glastoun

It wasn't a criticism of the broker, more just wondering whether the broker would have been having conversations with the lender during the process to make sure we weren't appying up the wrong tree, so to speak. Looks like they were doing this, and some of the extra questions the broker came back with were probably fed back to the lender, so the lender has more in their background notes than just what was on the application form.