< p>Troublesome clients, old fish face and his hatred of fees

5.00pm, Saturday: It's Praise and Grumble, Sheffield's phone-in that follows the ups and downs of our 5 local football teams, some would say 6, but I can't call Sheffield Wednesday a football team, Sheffield Wednesday – that's a bank holiday innit?!!   Anyway, I'll pinch the title: Praise and Grumble in the life of a mortgage broker   I sat for 5 hours on Tuesday preparing a mortgage for a couple that I recently did 2 BTL mortgages for. A doddle, or so I thought, decent folk – (he’d got a face like a smacked arse most of the time, made Gail Platt look happy, you know old fish face, and he had a definite hatred of fees, but some folk just appear that way) – beneath the frosty exterior both he and his wife are generally nice people.   Armed in the regulated market with only off-the-shelf products that currently number just a few hundred, my job is easy; find the available products that match requirements then recommend the most appropriate one, in this instance a free valuation and free legals were requested.   I couldn't go wrong, COULD I? I got a rate of around 4%, no valuation or legal fees as ordered, just an initial booking fee of £150, I let the lady know and she said come around Thursday and sign me up, it was diarised, and on with other tasks.   Wednesday he calls me, like Steve Wright's Mr Angry from Purley, fuming about the booking fee. I explained thoroughly that for people with no income outside rental income, products were severely limited and, not only that, but the lender had recommended. TMW, are probably the most competitive, but he just said: “Scrap it, we'll think about this, we go away for a few weeks Friday on a cruise, we'll have a think but we ain't being ripped off by these leaches,”  - by the way I've edited his real words.   The man had no feelings for the fact that I'd sat for hours completing paperwork, including a fact find, research proof, the KFI, the paper application form, which our Gert had sat and filled in from existing information we held, I'd even got in front of myself by preparing and printing off the suitability letter, did he care? Did he f**k, “scrap it” he said, “I'll scrap it” I said “it'll be shredded,” and guess what? It didn't reach the shredder; it was torn to smithereens before it hit the bin.   Then, lo and behold, on Friday – whilst Halibut head and missus were sailing off into the sunset, his solicitor called me and requested the mortgage details as the vendor was pushing for completion. I couldn't stop myself from chuckling as I told him the tale, he fully endorsed the fact that the paperwork was among the plastic tea cups and apple cores in the bin, but said that the clients would possibly end up losing the property, and we couldn't do anything as old smiler was in his pinstriped Speedos in some far flung place, Pina Colada in hand, Del Boy wannabe, not a care for us mere workers that dance to his tune. Well that's a Grumble.   But some Praise! Santander is now considering development finance again; it's looking up, another option for brokers.