Why use Your Property Club’s preferred mortgage broker and solicitor?
I am not a big believer in telling people which professional to use or not use. I think that if you want to use your existing broker or solicitor then that is fine and I encourage you to build that relationship. BUT I have always said that you are totally responsible for meeting our time lines.
I like to give clients this level of freedom in brokers and also solicitors, in fact for all services.
Then a funny thing happened!
I sat down one day and looked over the property we had completed and looked at all the problems we had with the process of these. In every single case when someone had used another solicitor or mortgage broker we had problems. Now we are only talking about 5 cases over the whole year but that’s 5 cases too many. It’s added stress that l don’t need and frankly that you as an investor do not want.
So from now on my attitude is that everyone uses our broker and solicitor except in exceptional cases.
Independence versus ease
Now this being the case it can beg the question whose interest is the broker or solicitor acting on.
The answer is clear: YOURS.
In the case of the broker the FSA or Financial Services Authority and for the solicitor the Law Society has very strict guidelines about whose interests the professional is acting on behalf of.
Your Property Club has no claim or interests throughout the process except that we are helping the process.
When you receive an offer from the broker you will have to sign a terms of business letter this is your contract with the broker. Like whys with the solicitor who will have you sign the instruction to Act letter.
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Both these documents are important to read and understand. If you don’t understand anything or you have questions you should speak directly with professional.
By having everyone use our professionals it means we can keep absolute control of the process.
This is an important point. So many times I have tried other brokers who claim to be able to process a deal, not charge any fees, or has a friend at the lender. Invariably it doesn’t work out and I am left to sort out the mess.
The way we structure deals is so important and one of the most important components that we need to look at is the valuation. Most brokers will complete the application and then past it to the funder. This means that from that point on we have lost control of the deal. This is very dangerous in our game.
I only work directly with packagers, these are brokers that essentially do everything the funder does except underwrite the deal. They will complete the application, do a credit check on you, order the valuation of the property, then “package” the deal up sending it to the funder for formal offer. It means that we become aware of problems before the funder does and can take appropriate action. We maintain control so the deal is done with more ease.
I also only work with specialist solicitors that are skilled in the art of new build buy to let investing. There are so many things that you need to consider when buying off plan or new build that you simply cannot risk using a general conveyancer.
So I guess in summary, we all know that if we pay peanuts we get monkeys, I am not a peanut, you are not a monkey so let’s work with experienced professionals that we can trust, even if they cost a little more in the short term.
Live with passion,
Brett Wood
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