Blaming brokers for delays ‘preposterous’ as ‘car crash’ looms for stamp duty deadline – Whittaker

Speaking to Specialist Lending Solutions, Whittaker said the idea that delays were the fault of conveyancers or of brokers failing to present cases properly was “preposterous”.

And he warned that failing to rectify the situation was leading to an impending car crash scenario for the industry.

“You only need to look at current lender service level reports on Criteria Hub to see that blaming intermediaries for delays is unfair,” he said.

“Not only is it unjustified, it’s also unhelpful. It certainly won’t help us resolve the delays. It’s not the fault of the lawyers, either, who seem to be working at maximum capacity and aren’t taking on more work than they can handle.

“No, as an industry we are accelerating towards a major problem with the looming deadline. We’re not heading for a traffic jam or a bump in the road – this is going to be a car crash,” he added.

Don’t chase targets

Whittaker urged fellow lenders not to chase lending targets but to ensure that they could complete their caseload in good time.

“While I admit greater clarity from lenders on what we need for different applications could help guide brokers, the key thing is the lending community should resist chasing next month’s lending targets,” he continued.

“Rather than suggesting this is not our problem or lowering thresholds, we should be getting our collective house in order for the whole mortgage journey.

“Frankly, we should all have been preparing for this since July – the rush to beat the 31 March deadline was inevitable and all too foreseeable.”