What to do if You’ve Been Removed from a Mortgage Lender’s Broker Panel

Mortgage lenders and other types of finance providers sometimes remove brokers from their panels, often through no fault of the adviser’s. When this happens, it can impact a broker’s career and prove detrimental to their clients, who will ultimately have less product choice.

Here you will learn what to do if a lender or provider has removed you from their panel, and what we can do to help you regain your whole-of-market status.

Why would a lender remove a broker from their panel?

There are a host of reasons why a lender might remove a broker from their panel, some more serious than others. The main reasons an adviser might be removed include:

• Misconduct: This can include severe wrongdoing such as dishonesty and fraud, as well as errors in judgement and failing to carry out the proper client checks.

• Performance issues: This includes submitting a low volume of business to the lender or turning in applications with errors that require substantial audits.

• Third-party involvement: If you are affiliated with a third party, such as a business partner, who has been involved in fraud or another serious offence, this could result in a mortgage lender or finance provider removing you from their panel.

These are the main reasons that lenders remove advisers from their panels, but there are others too. Luckily, in some cases, there is a way back for the broker.

If you’re a broker who’s been removed from panel by a lender, get in touch and we’ll go through your options with you and explain how we might be able to help.

What this means for the broker

Being removed from a lender’s panel can have serious consequences for a mortgage broker. Firstly, it can prevent the adviser from being able to bill themselves as whole-of-market, which might make them less appealing to prospective clients and employers.

Further to this, the adviser’s clients may suffer due to having less product choice. It could well be the case that the most suitable deal for them is only available from a lender the broker can no longer access, which places the adviser in a problematic position.

Finally, being removed from panel by one lender is like a black mark on a broker’s record, and it’s not uncommon for other lenders to remove them when it comes to light.

What to do if you’ve been removed from a lender’s panel

Your first course of action should be to open a direct dialogue with the lender who has removed you to see if you can negotiate and get your relationship back on track.

If that has failed or isn’t an option, you could consider joining Echo Finance. We are a whole-of-market brokerage of mortgage advisers, equity release specialists and insurance brokers, and we are on panel with every lender and insurance provider in the UK.

We have deep working relationships with our lender/provider partners and can potentially open a dialogue with them about getting an adviser re-added to their panel.

To make this happen, we would need to review your background and the reason you were delisted. If this happened due to involvement in fraud, we won’t be able to help, but other issues may be acceptable and considered on a case-by-case basis.

To reassure the lender, we would audit 100% of the cases you submit to them for a set period, to help convince them that there will be no issues once you’re re-added.

How we’ve helped our brokers in this situation

Several members of the Echo Finance team have joined us off the back of being delisted from mortgage lenders’ panels, and now enjoy fruitful relationships with these providers.

One of our current advisers was removed by TSB because a case submitted to them via his previous employer contained errors, and his employer failed to properly defend him when this came to light. As a result, TSB refused to take any more business from him.

When this adviser joined Echo, we opened up a dialogue with TSB and explained the circumstances behind the issue and agreed a long-term plan to return him to their panel. This involved auditing all of his cases before they arrived at TSB.

A year down the line, our broker was back on their panel, referring business to them.

We had similar success with another of our brokers, who wasn’t even aware she had been removed from Leeds Building Society’s panel until she registered with us.

This was also the result of a previous employer falling afoul of the lender’s standards and it reflecting negatively on the adviser, but once they joined our team, we worked with them and the lender to arrange an ongoing plan that will eventually see her back on their panel.

If you’re interested in joining Echo Finance, having been removed from panel by one or more lenders, get in touch and we will review your situation on a case-by-case basis.