Playbook, mortgage broker
Money paid on a mortgage case that went nowhere
This request arrives at the worst possible moment, from somebody who has lost a house and is now looking at what it cost them to lose it. The answer is genuinely complicated, and not because firms are being difficult: the money went to more than one place, some of it bought something that was actually carried out, and whether the firm's own fee stands turns on which event it was charged against. All of that is publishable. None of it can be applied to a particular case from here.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for refund requests holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The money went to at least two places, some to the firm and some to the lender for a valuation, and the firm can only speak for its own share however the client remembers paying it.
- A valuation fee buys an instruction that has usually already been carried out by the time the case dies, so the applicant with the strongest sense of grievance is often the one with the weakest claim to that particular payment.
- Whether the firm's fee stands depends on whether it was charged at application or at offer, which means the same firm gives different answers on two cases in the same week and both are correct.
- A chain collapsing has nothing to do with anything the firm did or failed to do, and the work was done, so this is the refund conversation where the fairness argument and the contract point in opposite directions.
How it arrives
- we did not complete so can i have my fee back
- the valuation came in under our offer do i get that money back
- the lender declined us am i still charged
- our chain collapsed can you refund what we paid
- is any of what i paid the lender refundable
- i paid a fee and we never even got an offer
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Your refund position, written against the trigger event | What happens if a case ends before application, after application and after offer, since the answer differs at each and the client's own memory of when they paid is unreliable. |
|---|---|
| The valuation fee and whose money it is | Who it was paid to, what it bought, and that the firm cannot return money it never held. This is the paragraph that stops an adviser being blamed for a decision that belongs to a lender. |
| What your fee actually paid for | The research, the packaging and the submission, described as work rather than as an outcome. A client who believes they paid for a mortgage feels cheated when they did not get one, and the framing is what changes that. |
| How to ask, and who decides | The route, what to include and who considers it. Keep it distinct from your complaints procedure, because a refund request and a complaint follow different processes and merging them costs the firm a stage. |
The reply
I am sorry, that is a horrible way for it to end. There are usually two separate payments and they work differently. The valuation fee was paid to the lender for an inspection that has already been carried out, so that money is not ours to return and any question about it goes to the lender [1]. Our own fee depends on the point it was charged against, application or offer, and that is set out in your fee agreement [2]. I cannot see what you paid, when, or to whom, and I cannot say whether another lender would have taken the case. Leave your name, your email and the property address and somebody will look at it properly.
Separating the two payments early stops the whole conversation being about the wrong pot of money, which is where these usually go wrong. Saying the valuation was carried out is uncomfortable and necessary, because without it the refusal sounds arbitrary. The line about another lender is deliberate: it is the question underneath, and it is the one thing that must never be answered here.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks for a specific sum back, quotes what they paid or when, or asks whether the case would have gone through with a different lender.
I cannot see any payment or make a decision about one, and I do not want to give you the wrong answer at this point. Leave your name, your email and the property address and somebody will go through it with you.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say a refund will be made, has been made, or is likely, since the assistant cannot see a payment, cannot authorise anything and cannot bind the firm.
- Never say the lender will return a valuation fee, which is the lender's decision about its own charge and is usually no.
- Never blame a lender, a valuer, a conveyancer or a chain while money is being discussed, because it reads as an admission that somebody owes something.
- Never suggest another lender would have said yes, which is a view on lending nobody here can take and the sentence a complaint gets built on.
Questions
- Can it check whether a fee was actually taken?
- No. It has no view of payments, accounts or case records and cannot look anybody up. It explains which fees exist and how each is treated, and the specific question goes to a person with the file open.
- These arrive furious. Is a page the right response at all?
- The page is not for the furious message, it is for the hour before it. Somebody who has read that the valuation fee went to the lender writes a different message than somebody who believes the broker pocketed everything, and that is worth having.
- Should the material say the fee is non refundable if that is the position?
- Say it plainly and say what it paid for in the same breath. A bare non refundable reads as a firm keeping money for nothing, whereas the same sentence with the work described is understood, argued with less, and is the truth anyway.
Keep reading
- Everything for a mortgage brokerProcess, documents and fees are safe to automate. Rates go stale fast and affordability cannot be answered generically.
- Handling refund requests in generalA refund question is really about eligibility and timing. What to index, what the reply may promise, and where it has to reach a person.
- The upload link has stopped working and the case is waiting on itExpired upload links, joint applicants sharing one login, and a portal that holds what was sent rather than what the lender has decided.
- The question every applicant asks, and the one nothing here can seeThe most asked question on a broker's site is the one with no visible answer. Publish what each stage waits on instead of a status.
- The work between a first conversation and anything reaching a lenderThe fact find, the consent to a credit search and the document gather. A product transfer, a remortgage and a purchase run it at three lengths.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.