Mortgage Strategy has received a number of complaints from brokers about lenders’ service levels and poor communication of policy changes, but advisers are worried about speaking publicly for fear of hurting their commercial relationships. As a result, we have agreed to include their comments anonymously.

One case brought to Mortgage Strategy involves the application of a first-time buyer mortgage with Barclays. This broker reports that the change the lender made to its affordability calculation – when it lowered its loan-to-income multiple in early September on not only new cases but those in the pre-offer pipeline – was not communicated effectively.

“I receive 30 to 40 lender emails a day, so for Barclays to send one email that impacts live mortgage cases is inadequate…. I have also spoken to Barclays about this case two to three times since 4 September and at no time did any staff member on the broker desk warn me or tip me off that the affordability had changed and would need re-assessing.

“I should have received an update on my particular application from the underwriter at that point.… In over 20 years of working as a broker, I’ve never felt so aggrieved,” the broker concludes.

A spokesperson for Barclays says: “We always have the best interest of our customers and partners (including brokers) in mind, and endeavour to provide appropriate notice of upcoming changes wherever possible.

“Given the fast-moving current market conditions, updates to products and lending policy can be announced at short notice.”

A second case brought to Mortgage Strategy’s attention concerns another of the big lenders. This broker says a 90 per cent LTV borrower’s application was accepted “with flying colours” in early August. Ten days later, however, the lender asked for more bank statements because of missing transactions. These were uploaded promptly. With the lender “not exactly forthcoming with information” in the intervening time, the case was eventually declined in early September.

An overdraft of “a couple of hundred pounds”, according to the broker, had chopped the maximum loan allowed down from £155,000 to £120,000.

“The lender has every right to decline the case,” the broker says. “But, in the meantime, it left the clients and solicitors in limbo with their entry date approaching fast.”

In the end, the broker managed to turn the case around with another high-street lender, with the buyers using hastily gifted money to bring the required LTV down to 85 per cent.

“If the lender had the capacity to spot an issue so quickly the first time, why not the second?” asks the broker.

Clients in limbo and being caught up in uncertainty appears to be a running theme.

Another broker contacted Mortgage Strategy to talk about two cases placed with the same lender. An offer had been received for each, only for the lender – another high-street behemoth – to request more information at a later date.

The offer for the first case was provided in mid-August and the second in mid-September. To date, no decision has been reached on either case and the broker is unsure if the offers could end up being withdrawn.

“It’s the lender’s money – it can do what it wants with it,” says the broker. “But surely, if you don’t have sufficient information to do so, you shouldn’t provide an offer. Where would that leave us if these clients had already exchanged contracts? It’s only a matter of time before this happens and a broker is sucked into litigation.

“There needs to be certainty,” the broker concludes.

The Money Group director Martin Stewart says, however: “I have been saying for a while that brokers need to be aware that for every finger they point at a lender they have three pointing back at them.

“Only this week, on a Zoom call with a BDM, we were told that brokers were still sending in cases that were not fit for purpose in a normal market, let alone during a pandemic.

“Another said it was having to reject cases whereby deposit monies were coming from bounceback loans; and today, on a quarterly review call with a lender, there was obvious frustration that brokers were not giving cases a big enough sense check before submitting them.

“All of these points are contributory causes to the end effect, which is lenders suffering poor service levels.

“[And] let’s not forget that four weeks ago lenders were expected to bring staff back to the office, to only now be told to send them home again.”

In these testing times, it appears that the demand for clear communications and certainty is even greater than that for high-LTV mortgages.