Mortgage brokers are the go between
or intermediaries who broke mortgage loans on behalf of individual people or
companies. They link those borrowing loans to the banks or financing bodies.
Such agents have become more popular especially with the increasing competition
for commercial
mortgages on markets.
The role of selling such products for
lenders has mostly been left to these agents to do it on behalf of the bank.
Individuals and companies have turned to these loans as they enable them to own
their houses instead of living in rental apartments.
Their major role is to find a bank or
a financial institution that is offering the kind of loan that a client wants.
However their activities must be governed by certain laws to regulate and
ensure they comply with any laws regarding lending to protect the customer from
being exploited. It is also their responsibility to advise the borrowers and to
ensure whatever loans they take are suitable and convenient to them. If such an
advice is afterwards found not to be working as promised or according to the
will and wish of the client, the broker is held liable for that loan.
However this is not the case to some
regions or countries where this is not the role of an agent thus the borrower
is responsible for their problems. In such a case, the agents are considered
just like sales agent whose role is to show those willing to borrow loans the
direction to a potential lender and they does this for a commission. Agents
also tend to attract customers to take loans to a particular bank; they assess
the credit history of the client to make sure they have the ability to repay
loans once given. This is achieved through a credit report indicating the
borrowing history of a client. After ensuring clients have the potential to
repay, an agent assists such customers get the product that suits their
description.
They also explains the legal
requirements of a policy or loan agreement, collecting of relevant documents
required in the process, helps in filling in the application forms and
submitting the applications to the lender. This helps save the client a lot of
money and time that would have been wasted in movements during the application
process. The major difference between an agent and loan officer is that loan
officer relate directly with the borrower by selling the mortgage product unlike
the broker who do not sell and instead buys on behalf of the actual buyer thus
acting as the mediator between the two.
A loan officer works directly for the
bank or any other financial institution and therefore is not liable of any
fraud cases regarding a loan and instead the institution they are working for
is held responsible, an agent on the other hand is completely liable for any
problem with a customer who they helped acquire a mortgage loan for
they were the sole adviser of such clients. For this reason, loan agent must be
legally approved and licensed by the relevant authority before they begin
serving customers. They are important for they assist and thus relieve most
people the burden of applying for a loan.
