Ultimately it is the broker who is responsible for the product they sell to their customer and regardless of where the source of the original information came from it is the broker’s responsibility to ensure that the terms and conditions were checked prior to committing a client to contract. If the same product had been spotted in a newspaper advertisement and there had been a misprint, would you expect recompense from the newspaper?
I can understand your next question perhaps being, ‘why do I pay for a mortgage sourcing product if it affords me no protection?’ I do not know of any mortgage sourcing system that will currently indemnify a broker for any incorrect illustrations ‘ thankfully and due to extreme diligence these are few and far between in our experience.
However, the issue of regulation is about to rear its ugly head. If, as proposed, the lender becomes ultimately responsible for the information provided at point of sale, then the situation outlined above may change. Again, a big question mark is raised over which quote systems lenders will want to support in terms of ‘standing behind’ the illustrations produced. It will be logistically impossible for every lender in the marketplace to ‘authorise’ or ‘approve’ illustrations produced by upwards of 15 different PC-based sourcing systems and to control the burgeoning numbers of sourcing sites appearing on the internet.
