Monday
I have four mortgage applications to submit today, they are for clients I have already met and advised – they have now committed to their property purchases or remortgages and want me to get started on their applications.
I have been working on applications all morning and Jonathan, my business partner, makes me go out for a walk at lunchtime.
I now have to get the applications finished this afternoon and submitted. The phone has not stopped ringing though, and I’ve only managed to get two submitted.
It is now 5:30pm and I want to get home to see my son before he goes to bed.
Tuesday
I am in the office nice and early and ready to get the other two applications submitted.
Unfortunately the lender system keeps on telling me there is an error and to call the help desk.
They cannot help either and tell me to try again tomorrow morning as their systems should reset overnight.
We are in the process of revamping our website, which I thought would be a 10 minute call with our web guy, but turns into well over an hour.
It is lunchtime and Jon and I run out to grab a sandwich and discuss the web ideas during another walk. This afternoon I package the two submitted mortgage cases, catch up on some admin and run some protection quotes for one of my introducers.
Wednesday
I am in the office for 8:30am and hit submit again on the two problematic mortgage applications from yesterday, same error message, same response from the help desk of, ‘Try again tomorrow’.
Two client meetings in the diary for today, the first has arrived promptly at 9am and we discuss his circumstances and what he is looking to achieve with his next property purchase. The numbers look like they stack up. We agree that I will do my research and report back to him in the next day or two.
It is 11am and I am doing some preparation for my 2:30pm meeting, the client calls and tells me he can no longer make the meeting.
We arrange for next week and I am going to use the time to research some cases.
Thursday
I have arranged to see a client at her home at 9:30am to review some remortgage options.
It is 11:30am and I have made it into the office. I have time to try those two mortgage applications again – yes the same ones from Tuesday.
Hurrah, I push the submit button on the first one and the system has accepted it. Things are looking up until I press submit on the second one and I get the ever-recurring error message.
The help desk tells me to try again tomorrow.
It is 5pm and I receive a pleasant email: one of the mortgage applications has already been approved.
Friday
Jonathan is out today, the office is quiet on my own. I will give that mortgage application another try: ‘Sorry, there is an error, please call the help desk’.
The help desk advises to try again on Monday. I call the client to update him and he is getting understandably frustrated.
I like to catch up with my admin and research for cases on a Friday afternoon. I will leave by 5:30pm to give my son a bath and spend some quality time with him before bed.
Lee Rhodes is a mortgage and protection adviser at Rhodes Advisory
If you would like to write a Diary of Adviser, please contact Melanie Tringham at melanie.tringham@ft.com
