Changes to lenders’ criteria have allowed Access 4 Finance to complete a secured loan enquiry with no processing costs.

The case was below 50% loan to value (LTV) and had no adverse credit, completed through Precise Mortgages, which provides free credit search facilities to their brokers.

The client who initially contacted their mortgage broker to raise an extra £10,000 for home improvements considered a second charge when they realised that a remortgage would have meant moving to a product with a higher rate.

Scott Thorpe, director of Access 4 Finance, said: “In addition to the cost of the credit search being absorbed by the lender, Precise Mortgages also paid for the desktop valuation. As the client’s mortgage was with The Woolwich there was no cost for the mortgage questionnaire.

“As we don’t charge any extra ‘processing costs’ we were able to offer a reduced broker fee without affecting what our introducer received for referring their client to us.

“These criteria changes often get overshadowed by the headline grabbing ‘rate slashed to…’ but to packagers like us anything that helps reduce the costs is just as important.”

Alan Cleary, managing director of Precise Mortgages, added” “This is simple. We embrace technology and online services to eliminate abortive costs for the broker. Access 4 Finance used our online system to run our affordability model, used online services for credit search and automated valuation models to determine credit profile and loan to value. We make processing a Precise Mortgages second charge loan case simple.”