The beauty of working in the specialist mortgage market is that no two client enquiries or circumstances are the same. However, on the flip side, it can also sometimes be the case that no two lenders will react in the same way to any given situation.

This is where close-working relationships and perseverance can often make the difference for clients. In late August, Tryloans, was approached by a gentleman, who was over retirement age, with a request to raise £135,000 from his unencumbered property that he had recently moved out of, to live with his niece, who is his carer.

The background to this case was the fact that he was looking to free up these funds to buy a new property with her partner, in which all three of them were to live.

On first inspection, this was not a particularly large or difficult enquiry, and with the property under offer, it seemed to be relatively straightforward. That is until the sale of the new property fell through in mid-September, after the deposit had already been paid with a completion date set for the end of October. This led to more funds being needed to purchase the new property, which in turn meant that this now had to be classed as a regulated loan, with the partner having to offer a personal guarantee (PG).

To further complicate matters, an application had to be completed on behalf of the partner who, by now, was no longer on speaking terms with the broker. As such, we intervened to get the application completed and asked the lender in question – Masthaven – to send this to the PG’s solicitor for a signature. Just to underline that this was not the largest case by value, but by its very nature was massively important to the original client in light of his circumstances.

However, things didn’t get any easier as we then encountered great difficulty in verifying the client’s ID. To make matters worse, his solicitor sent over an HMRC letter addressed to his previous address from May 2013. In addition, his bank account was also still registered to his old address, meaning he had no other current means of identification.

The PG’s solicitor also sent over what he wanted and not what was required. At this point, some lenders may have washed their hands with such a case due to the sheer number of obstacles being thrown in its path.

Fortunately, Colin Moth of Masthaven stuck with it, and thanks to regular updates and additional promptings regarding what else could be done to find the right solution, we managed to help the client complete on the case just in time.

This relatively small, uncomplicated case on the surface demonstrates just what kind of issues can emerge along the way and underlines just what can be achieved when you have excellent relationships, patience, flexibility and a doggedness to see a case through to completion. But this can only happen if a lender is willing to lend its full support on this journey.

Attributed to Barry Scott of Tryloans