Kensington has pledged an underwriter call as part of the initial assessment of every application.

The specialist lender claimed this means that brokers can expect a phone call from the underwriter, who will be working on their case, to discuss the application and provide more certainty about the outcome and supporting documents that are required.

Alex Hammond, head of marketing communications at Kensington, said: “The reason why brokers use Kensington is because our applications are assessed by an underwriter, not an automated credit scoring system and this means we can consider applicants with a whole range of more complex circumstances such as self-employment or failed credit score.

“So, given that our key selling point is an individual assessment by an experienced underwriter, we realised that it made sense to bring this right to the front of our service proposition and commit to an underwriter call as part of our initial assessment on every application.

“As far as we know, no other specialist lender has committed to provide this level of service to brokers. This is a first for the intermediary mortgage market.”

Pete Collins, underwriting manager at Kensington, added: “By speaking to a broker as part of our day one assessment, we can establish an understanding of the case straightaway and this means we can provide more certainty about the types of questions we may have and the supporting documents we will need to process the application.

“In the specialist mortgage market no case is a straightforward case, but in my experience, this simple conversation helps make even the most complex applications more straightforward.”