Nicola Firth Interview

INTERMEDIARIES ONLY

In this episode of the MLC Show, host Sean Rogers sits down with Nicola Firth, Founder and CEO of Knowledge Bank, to discuss the UK mortgage market, placing difficult cases, and how the “Notify” system can help mortgage brokers save time and suffer less stress when placing cases.

You can read the interview if you scroll down or if you prefer to listen click on the Spotify/Apple Podcasts logos or if you prefer to watch click on the YouTube logo below.

Knowledge Bank

If you are a mortgage broker in England & Wales you can reach out to Nicola and Knowledge Bank here

Nicola Firth Interview

How does “Notify” help UK mortgage brokers and debate around the UK mortgage market with Nicola Firth Founder & CEO of Knowledge Bank.

The feature is for intermediaries only. The interview was recorded in October 2023 and released in November 2023.

Nicola is a former mortgage broker and founded Knowledge Bank. Knowledge Bank states they are the largest database of mortgage criteria in the UK.

Nicola, can you start by explaining what Knowledge Bank is and the services available to mortgage brokers?

Knowledge Bank is the UK’s largest criteria search system. We have well over 4000 brokers now that use the system and over 260 lenders. It replaces your spreadsheets, your little black books and all of that.

All of the criteria is kept up to date by lenders themselves. They each have a log into the system. You can search on everything really, residential, buy to let, second charges, equity release, self-build, bridging and commercial. So, you can search across any of those, whatever kind of case you’ve got, to place those little nuances with criteria.

You pop those in, and it will tell you, in a nutshell, which lenders will do it and what their criteria is around that. So, we have got other things as well on the system. We put things like service levels on there, we put details of product transfers and we’ve just launched our fantastic new service “Notify” on there as well which is where you can input these cases, these new inquiries to lenders in real time and of course they’ll come back to you in real time.

You’ve also got the audit trails when it goes to underwriting.

We launched that on 1st September 2023 and that’s proven really popular as you can imagine because again there’s nothing else like it in the industry.

Recently, I was in a meeting, and after the meeting I was speaking to two people and they had very different views in respect of the property market, specifically the purchase and sale market.

On the one hand, there was someone arguing that the news from Barrett this past quarter that forward sales fell to 9221 in the three months to 8 October 2023 and from 13,314 a year earlier. Whilst they added the outlook for the year ahead remained uncertain with the availability and pricing of mortgages critical to the long-term health of the UK housing market. Alongside this, the person I was speaking to said they were talking about the surveyors they knew who were saying they’ve been quite quiet at the moment re: bookings. They felt that was indicative of a downturn in the market with prices set to fall markedly.

On the other hand, there was someone else there who said that they felt that whilst prices may come down a little, and the new build sector without government schemes may dip, we may be through the worst of things post-mini Budget 2022, meaning there was still good mortgage availability if you have the knowledge. Their point was that there’s always death, debt, and divorce, and that means those life events will create the triggers for sales and chains as a result.

Where do you stand on the current property market? What are your thoughts on the outlook ahead for the property market in 2024?

Is it doom and gloom or are you cautiously optimistic?

I’m naturally an optimist anyway, and I think I’ve been in this industry for enough years now as a broker for years and years before Knowledge Bank, and when I’m saying years and years, I really do mean years and years!

I’m talking 2008, I’m talking credit crunch and working through that as a mortgage broker. When I see what’s going on now, I’m thinking this is fine compared to that. It’s absolutely fine. Now, for a lot of brokers that are just getting into this market or have maybe been in for a year or two, it’s a worrying time.

It’s the first time they’ve been through this. But anybody with any sort of length of time in the industry knows that boom and bust is just what happens, isn’t it? So, I am cautiously optimistic.

 I think this year we’re reeling off the back of the dare I say, the mini-budget, which I know sends shudders down our spine when we talk about what happened there and that didn’t do us any favours, but there have been other things as well, economic factors. You’ve got the war in Ukraine and of course, now there’s Israel and Palestine.

Events can affect confidence and stability in the markets, and we don’t know how that’s going to play out. But looking closer to home and thinking about your interesting point about life events, all of these things that are triggers and whatever’s happening in the world, people’s lives go on. Certainly, in the UK, I think people are very resilient.

In the UK home ownership is absolutely what people aspire to, to make that final payment on their mortgage. We’re seeing, the searches that we’re seeing on Knowledge Bank, suggest that people are still finding ways to do that, whether that is ownership for themselves, or even first-time landlords looking still to get into the buy-to-let market, it’s fair to say that the activity is still there.

I think what’s done the most damage this year is the constant rate rises.

I think the big thing about it is instability in the market is what causes stagnation. That’s a big part of it. So, people hold off. If they can hold off, they do. Let’s watch, let’s wait. We saw that at the back end of 2022.

Everybody shut up shop at the end of November. They won’t forget it. Let’s just celebrate Christmas early and we’ll come back in the new year, and see what happens. Well, we came back in the New Year, and look what happened. The rates went up and up and up and up.

So, I think we are going to start to see stability in the market. I think, interestingly, as well, inflation seems to be stabilising. Interestingly, just this week it was in the news that wage rises have now overtaken inflation.

So, some people have now got the money to spend. I know I’m generalising here, and I fully appreciate the different circumstances for everybody.

But I do think that broadly speaking people will have the want and the desire to move, to remortgage, to extend whatever that may be, and that will generate as soon as we see rates stabilise and people get used to that new normal which we’ve not had for how many years, it will generate activity in the market.

It absolutely will. So how quickly that happens is another question, but I am cautiously optimistic for next year

What are the most searchable terms currently on Knowledge Bank and what does that tell us about the market, if anything, right now?

So, it’s an interesting one. The two main areas obviously are residential and buy-to-let. Of course, we’ve got all the other lending types, and they all tell a story, but if I stick with those two.

What we’re seeing in terms of residential, it is predominantly around affordability.

That is without a shadow of a doubt and that goes across several different categories that they could search on to try and get the most out of affordability.

So, for example, looking at affordability in its rarest form, how many multiples of income and all of that sort of thing. But then also we’re looking at things like the maximum term for employed income. So that suggests people working longer to try and afford the mortgage payments, maximum term just in general. We have seen interest only creep in there as well.

It’s an interesting one that I think affordability plays a massive part, but does show that if people can afford it they’re looking to do that and of course that has a direct impact then on the rates and that same loan now costs more than it did sort of 12/18 months ago.

Buy-to-lets is an interesting one. Where I’m particularly encouraged with buy-to-let is we often see in the top five searches “first-time landlords” and I think well that’s really good. Whether they go through then to completion though of course because bear in mind when they’re on Knowledge Bank they’re searching looking to place a case and have a conversation with a client now obviously that then needs to translate into written business but the fact that the inquiries are there is positive.

If that doesn’t translate to written business what’s the blocker?

Is it the size of deposit? Is it the rental incomes?

While the inquiries are there you feel like you’ve got something to work with and even if it’s not affordable right now for that person, they’re certainly aspiring to be landlords. So, I find that quite interesting on first-time landlords and no requirement to be a homeowner is another one.

So again, these are people that maybe sat at home and thought I don’t want to buy my own place or maybe they are renting and thinking actually I just want to get an investment and my foot on the property. I find that really quite encouraging actually as there’s a lot of pressure and tensions in the buy-to-let market.

There are lots of challenges for tenants, landlords, and mortgage brokers. Focusing on landlords and mortgage brokers, how do you view the appetite and approach of lenders in the buy-to-let market currently? What would you like to see from lenders in the buy-to-let market? Are there any interesting new products and if so, is this something that would be indicative of additional creativity and new products in the buy-to-let market in 2024?

There’s no two ways about it. The buy-to-let market has been a challenge, hasn’t it, for brokers and lenders and of course the end customer as well. It’s been a massive challenge. I mean, we have seen, obviously, rates go up, but also as well, high fees as well in this area.

How do you feel about the high fees? It depends. The size alone largely depends on which part of the country. When I was a broker, I worked in like, Barnsley, Sheffield, Wakefield areas, so, sort of South and West Yorkshire, and the property prices are just not a patch on what they are down south.

So those high-fee products just don’t work as well because it just doesn’t make sense. Whereas if you’re buying in central London, where prices are really high if you’re paying a £5,000 fee or something like that, it might be to save on the rate. Also, lenders have a job to do, they have to make money from lending money, and that’s exactly what they’re there for. So, you’ve kind of got to go one way or the other.

I think in terms of innovation, we have seen with Quantum the 100% interest cover and we were chatting about that pre-show. That’s interesting and that’s a real innovation I love that it is from a relatively new lender, and I love the fact that that innovation is coming in from these kinds of lenders.

So, in terms of what we’re going to see next year, I firmly believe we’ll see more innovation from the buy-to-let area.

It would be good to see innovation and careful consideration of affordability on the rental covers, that’s where I think the work needs to be done if anything can be done but that is a challenge. That is certainly a challenge for lenders to get comfortable with that and to get it to work because the other thing that lenders, and I know are aware of, is the fact that there are so many landlords out there that have tenants in maybe long term tenancies, they’re probably getting underneath market value for that property because they’re a good tenant. They don’t want to upset them; they don’t want to lose them. And also, those landlords with a real social conscience in terms of the fact that it’s difficult times for their tenants and they don’t want to kick them when they’re down. They’re already struggling to afford food and heating. It’s the affordability that’s the sticking point, isn’t it? That’s the sticking point.

So, some sort of innovation around that, and then I can’t not mention the green issue as well because it’s happening, it’s not happening in but anyway ultimately whatever the date is and whatever is decided landlords are going to need some help with going green. They really are because there are properties out there that are either not up to scratch, and also properties that are never going to be up to scratch, if you think of the kind of properties that a lot of landlords buy, certainly, perhaps in sort of the Yorkshire area, like old two up- two down, old properties, back to backs, in areas that were mining villages and things like that. You can’t put cavity wall insulation in those.

So, what are we going to do? What makes that okay? So, I think they’re the two area areas that I would like to see innovation on around affordability and also helping with the green challenges.

So, lenders have got their work cut out, for sure, in a difficult market where they’re trying to meet their quotas and innovate, but it’s where we find ourselves, unfortunately.

You are a former mortgage broker yourself. What do you think is the biggest challenge facing mortgage brokers both today and potentially through 2024? I’m wondering whether it might be making deals fit affordability with rate increases. A complex market does that mean that knowledge is needed more than ever now? Or is it a lack of work instructions, referrals or is it the lender’s behaviour in terms of the products, rates, late changes to criteria, downvaluing, or something else?

It’s a little bit of everything, but I think affordability is a big issue at the minute. It’s massive trying to get deals to fit and how that’s going to look. So, I think the affordability is probably one of the biggest challenges.

I also do think as well maybe the lack of inquiries. I think this year mortgage brokers have really felt that they’ve not quite had the inquiries that they might have done otherwise. We’ve seen the new build market is just not in the greatest of places this year and of course, that’s a big part. It’s a big part of government strategy around housing but also a massive part of our industry as well, isn’t it mortgages on new build properties?

So, I think probably that challenge of new inquiries for brokers without a shadow of a doubt.

I think in terms of the market, you made the point about the interest rate changes and at the start of 2023 brokers were tearing their hair out, weren’t they, up to a few months ago when products were being pulled and it is so difficult for lenders as well.

We’re constantly trying to be proactive at Knowledge Bank. What can we do to help? What can we improve? So, we put a new category in, and we asked every lender to declare what their stance was on rate pulls.

Would you give any notice? How much notice would you give from that notice? When do you guarantee the rate? Is it when the dip is done? Is it when the application goes in? What’s that point that you guarantee? Just to try and help navigate that. So, I think we’ve probably managed to make things a little bit better as everybody can see what the game rules are now.

It doesn’t change the game, you just understand what the rules are, if that makes sense. But hopefully, with a little bit more stability coming towards interest rates, that should be less of a problem because it was a case of you see a client, you do the application, it’s already been pulled……It was just chaos.

So, I think that’s going to be less of an issue, or I certainly hope it is going into 2024. But I think those new business inquiries, I think they’re going to be the challenge. I do think brokers are still going to have to dig deep next year, certainly for the first half of 2024 without a shadow of a doubt, because it’s going to take a little bit of time for that confidence to return to the market.

But I do think by the time we get to the second half of next year, things should look a lot brighter, and hopefully affordability will just maybe ease. I mentioned it earlier, the fact that we’re seeing wages now that have overtaken inflation, again that bodes well, doesn’t it?

You know, people are feeling a little bit better, a little bit better off, not massively, but just enough to make them comfortable and make them confident. It’s what you need to sort of stimulate the markets, that confidence, isn’t it?

I must ask you about Knowledge Bank.

So obviously there are lots of key features, and benefits, some of them we touched on already. What do you think is the best feature or benefit, though? If you could only pick one, I might allow you to pick your top three, what would they be?

I was going to say, how can I pick one?

The system as a whole is the fact that you’ve got every single lender’s criteria at your fingertips 24 hours a day, and the lenders have keyed it on, they’re the ones that are directly saying this is our criteria and that you can do a search across as many criteria as you need on your case and find out which lenders will do it.

So that’s always been the main core function. But I have to say at the minute, “Notify”. “Notify” it’s fantastic. Something we thought about doing for quite a long time and it’s been a really complex piece. But that is my absolute. It’s a game-changer. It’s an absolute game-changer for lenders and for brokers.

So, you’ve logged onto Knowledge Bank, and you’ve got this case, it’s a bit of a humdinger. You’re thinking, what am I going to do with this? We’ve all had them, haven’t we, where you’re thinking, this is going to take me hours and hours to place.

When you’ve been on Knowledge Bank, you’ve got those lenders that you think “These are worth a shout”. But what’s the next thing that you do? Well, the next thing you do, and I know this because I’ve been a broker, you blind copy the world in on an email, don’t you?

Don’t lie! You do, you absolutely do. And you cast that net out and you see it all come back and all these BDMs that you’ve ever met get a blind copied email with the query. Some will reply to you, some don’t reply. Some will reply three days later, some will come back and answer a question with a question.

And you’ve just got a full inbox on this one case.

Or what you’ll do is you’ll start picking the phone up and ringing around and all of that kind of thing to try and get more information. We’ve taken all that away with Notify.

So with Notify, you go on there and you select the lenders that you want to put the case to, and you’ll type exactly what you would put in that email, but you’re sending it specifically to the lenders that you actually think there’s a shout with.

The lenders all get that pings through in real time to them. Now, we use what we call persistent messaging. So, it’s different to live chat, because with live chat, when you have a session, it disappears, doesn’t it? But with persistent messaging, it’s there. So, if you then ping that out to the lenders, you go and see another client or whatever, you come back, it’s still a live session, it’s still there.

Now the lenders…… here’s where it gets good. So, the lenders can see in real-time which other lenders have been asked about that case. So, it creates that little bit of urgency to get back because you know what? They want that business. But also as well, to be fair to lenders, what Notify does is if the broker then places that case and says, yes, I’ve managed to place it, the other lenders that were going to come back maybe a few days later on an email, they’re obviously a lot more responsive. The SLAs are a lot quicker on Notify anyway, but they don’t need to look at it if the broker has sorted it already.

So, it’s really efficient for lenders and brokers. So, we’ve got brokers that have used it, have said, this is me now. This is how I’ll place cases forever more.

Because what you’ve also got is the audit trail. So that conversation that you’ve just had with that lender about this quirky case or a tricky case or whatever it might be, you’ve then got the audit trail then on Notify all in writing.

And you know the saying, in our industry, if it’s not written down, it didn’t happen. So, when it goes to underwriting, it should fly through because that conversation has been recorded in writing and we’ve had some brilliant examples of cases that have been placed, some of them that we’ve seen and that I’ve looked at and thought, no chance. You look at that case, you think, that’s not going anywhere. When we were in the beta test stage and we were looking at what cases were going through, we don’t do that now it’s live of course, it was just while we were in the beta testing that we had to see how it was working and everyone who was testing it and some of the cases, you’re thinking that’s just never going anywhere.

We had one like that and it was placed within 20 minutes. The broker was ecstatic, and we had another one which was a really complex property, but it was worth £1,500,000. It’s a case that got placed within the same day. So, the speed and efficiency is there in the system with Notify and there’s no extra charge either. It’s all within it. We’ve just put it on there now for brokers to use. So that is my absolutely favourite.

My favourite part of the system is “Notify” because it’s just a game changer, it really is and lenders love it.

Playing devil’s advocate, say I’m an experienced mortgage broker though and I have loads of high-level experience, got knowledgeable lenders, and really good relationships.

Why would I trial or sign up to Knowledge Bank or use an alternative?

“Notify” is as I’ve said a big one. If you’re using that you’re saving yourself hours and even days from ringing around, emails, clogging up your inbox for that loan. But even looking at what I’ve said about the original concept of Knowledge Bank and all that criteria in one place at the same time, what advisors probably don’t realise is the amount of change that goes on in the background.

So, on an average month, and when I say an average month sometimes it’s a lot higher, if anything happens in the market it can be a lot higher, but in an average month we get about 2000 changes to criteria every month.

Even if you’re a broker with years of experience, firstly can you really keep up with that pace of change and know everything while you’re doing your job?

Secondly, I would question why you would want to! Let’s be honest not that much fun, is it? We’re doing the job for you.

Knowledge Bank doesn’t replace advisors, it doesn’t give advice, and we don’t have any B to C access at all.

What we are doing is giving the tools to advisors to do their jobs so it’s saving them hours scouting around for the information.

Again with an experienced broker, we’ve all been there in that horrible situation where you’ve put a case in and it’s now declined because it didn’t fit on some criteria but you know the lender used to do that because you placed cases like that before but lenders, and we love them, but sometimes when they get negative criteria change it is not the same as with a positive change. If they get positive changes, it’s all over the trade press or they send emails out. When they get negative changes, let’s be fair, their marketing department is not going to get the bugle out and say “Guess what we don’t do now…” They’re not going to do that are they?

As a mortgage broker, how are you going to keep check? Because sometimes that happens, sometimes the lender did used to do that and now they don’t. But it’s all there on Knowledge Bank in real time, kept up to date by the lenders on Knowledge Bank.

So even if you are an experienced broker that is fantastic because you know all the tricks and tips in the industry, you know how to think, and how to speak to your clients. You can use the tool to really help bolster that knowledge and as a sense checker as well.

I was wondering about compliance and regulatory considerations both for you and mortgage brokers, especially with the FCA consumer duty.

How have you implemented compliance FCA consumer duty responsibilities to support mortgage brokers in those compliance areas?

So, we’ve got two things really. So first of all, as soon as consumer duty got announced we were like “Okay we need to step in. We need to help with this.” One of the biggest challenges with consumer duty we felt is identifying that potential vulnerability. The example I always give is when you find two people who have just both been through a divorce.

One is absolutely broken. They may be on the verge of Bankruptcy. It’s been the worst experience mentally. Somebody that you need to really help and protect. Yet you’ve got somebody else over here that’s in a much more positive state mentally. They’ve got rid of them, and they’ve got a nice pile of cash in the back pocket.

You’ve got to treat it as a potential issue. Everything is looking at it differently now with consumer duty and. I would argue, I think in my experience, most brokers have been doing this forever. All we’re doing is formalising it.

So, what we’ve done is we’ve gone through our entire category set and we’ve got hundreds and hundreds of categories broken down in really minute detail and we’ve put a consumer duty little flag against them. So, if you search on one of those categories, e.g., you’ve had that initial inquiry and you’re looking where that case might go, you search on there and there’s a consumer duty flag on it.

So that might make you think, do you know what? I never thought about asking them about this. As an example, maybe I didn’t realise that was something to consider with first-time buyers, for example. Again, they’re excited, they don’t think they’re vulnerable, but they might be for various reasons and with their inexperience.

It’s noting that you’ve had that conversation and so to help with that as well we’ve got evidence of research that sits alongside your product.

Evidence of research helps and does two things. One, it helps you, because if you’ve not gone for the cheapest product, unless you’re fudging the sourcing systems and I don’t believe anybody’s doing that…, but if you were, you don’t have to because what you’ve got is your evidence of research from Knowledge Bank that says on this day, at this time, this is what these lenders said their criteria was. I couldn’t go with the first, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc on the product sourcing because it didn’t fit their criteria.

And here’s the evidence on Knowledge Bank via the evidence of research.

We’ve also got the consumer duty flags on the evidence of research as well. So again, from a compliance point of view, you are bolt and braces.

The minute you got that inquiry and started looking at the options, you identified a potential consumer duty risk and you’ve covered that then in your fact find.

Knowledge Bank webinars have become increasingly popular. What are your favourite topics and how are brokers benefiting from the webinars?

I still present a lot of our webinars because I love it and I have to fight internally still to get to do it because we’ve got Shane who’s our Sales Director and we have Jonathan as well, as they present some as well but criteria clinics especially, I love doing.

We started those in lockdown. Everybody was doing something a little bit different, and we were like “How can we help brokers place cases even better when they’re not seeing BDMs, and actually how can we sort of link the two together?”

What I love about it and my favourite bit about those particular ones is that we’re just placing cases on those they’re so interactive. We have all been on webinars where you think, is this a séance? Is anybody there? You don’t know if anyone’s listening. I think that’s what makes ours different is they’re so lively, they’re so interactive with the mortgage brokers. We’ve got four lenders on; we’re talking about specific subjects, and it can be anything.

We plan them twelve months in advance, and they book up about twelve months in advance as well, with the lenders who want to be on there. We can talk about absolutely anything. Do you know the one that always gets the most people on there and gets them going is joint borrower-sole proprietor.

Don’t ask me why, but that is the one that everybody likes. We’ll do limited company buy-to-let. That’s always popular.

In January we normally do one around first-time buyers because you get a lot of people then who have said “We are going to buy this year”. They’ve talked to family and family has given them money over Christmas and so forth.

The other one that we always do around the start of the year as well is remortgaging, and capital raising, I need to reconsolidate, consolidate debt, and relook at how we’re doing things.

So, we try and time the webinars to be helpful, although some of them, such as limited company by to let, can be done anytime because you’re getting those inquiries throughout the year. We do them at the criteria clinics every other Monday.

But what I love is the number of cases that we place live on there. The brokers say “Right, I’ve got this case and people put them in the Q and A. It’s so lively. The Q and A is just going off all the time. We’ve also got the questions they’ve asked on registration and we’re just placing cases live.

So, if you’re on there, you’re either going to get your case placed if you’ve got one, and if not, you’re going to learn an awful lot about the subject and they’re quite entertaining as well. I’ve been a broker, and so was Shane, our Sales Director. We ask the questions of lenders that brokers really genuinely want to know. I think that’s what makes our webinars really different and perhaps more successful than others out there because we don’t have a standard set of questions.

We’re talking to lenders like we’ve got our own broker hats on and take the view of “this is what they want to know.”

Before we wrap up, what are your plans for Knowledge Bank in 2024?

So, we’ve got lots of new stuff coming in in 2024. Obviously, we are right at the start of “Notify” launching, so that for us is a massive area.

We have some brokers on Knowledge Bank at the moment who have seen it but not used it. Like everything we do, it’s just so simple to use. Click, click, you’re off. Easier than sending out however many emails, certainly easier than calling around, but then you’ve got the other brokers that have used it and said “This is amazing that this is in and this is the only way we’re going to start placing cases now with lenders making those difficult inquiries” and there’s no real in between. So, I think what we’re going to see is a lot more adoption of that because I say we’ve literally just launched it. So, it does take time for everybody to go “What’s that then? Let me have a go of using it”.

We also have more lenders coming on to Notify as well. We’ve got about 30 lenders on there, a real cross-section, but we’re going to be rolling that out to our next phase of lenders coming in ahead of next year.

Next year we’ve got a lot of things coming for brokers as well.

We’ve got a new search that will be on there, things that they’ll be able to do just to make it that little bit easier for brokers on that usability perspective, being able to find what they’re looking for.

Of course, you’re hearing a lot about machine learning and artificial intelligence, which are also things that we already do incorporate it’s just that we don’t necessarily shout about it, but they are obviously the buzzwords that are out at the minute.

So many more things that are coming in for lenders as well. We’ve got a lot of innovations coming for lenders.

Our aim is that we want to bring lenders and brokers together, to have good quality conversations save everybody time, and ultimately place those cases, that’s the whole reason of why we exist. We will also be doing something on affordability as well, which again will help with that understanding and again, speed things up.

Of course, back for its 6th consecutive year, it is our twelve days of Christmas. So, we’re doing that again this year. We love that.

We turn our homepage into our ho-ho-homepage, see what we did there!? What we do is every day, lenders donate prizes and there are some fantastic prizes and we’ll be shouting about those in December.

As long as you are a user of Knowledge Bank or even if you’re in a free 30-day trial, you get access to the prize draw every day and there are some fabulous prizes.

Unique Conveyancing Alternative For Mortgage Brokers & Estate Agents

We operate a FREE to-access unique conveyancing service for mortgage brokers & estate agents.

We work successfully with over 300 brokers & agents nationwide.

– 5* Service & communication focused
– Conveyancing firms cherry-picked
– Fee earners in each firm pre-vetted, interviewed, and ring-fenced for you
– Updates include “what is outstanding and from whom” without you needing to ask
– Higher referral fees available & faster payment service assisting cashflow
– Stringent SLA’s signed by the conveyancing firms and available to view in our portal to remove any grey areas if service is questioned
– Mediation service for clients if any issues occur with a 5* hands on support service if and when challenges arise
– Compliance & brand protection

Additional Blogs That May Assist You

The content of the blog, podcast, video, and/or show is for information purposes only, and does not constitute advice.

THINK CAREFULLY BEFORE SECURING OTHER DEBTS AGAINST YOUR HOME. YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON A MORTGAGE OR ANY OTHER DEBT SECURED ON IT. IF YOU ARE THINKING OF CONSOLIDATING EXISTING BORROWING YOU SHOULD BE AWARE THAT YOU MAY BE EXTENDING THE TERMS OF THE DEBT AND INCREASING THE TOTAL AMOUNT YOU REPAY. SOME BUY-TO-LET MORTGAGES ARE NOT REGULATED BY THE FCA. EQUITY RELEASED FROM YOUR HOME WILL ALSO BE SECURED AGAINST IT.