Recommended Mortgage Broker

We send information to the banks who assess and approve the loan. Some of the big banks have overseas processing centres but overall, most is based in Australia.

There are virtual assistants and other back office processing available to mortgage brokers that are based overseas. Some brokers use these services, some don't.

 

This is not the case. with brokers you would generally only provide loan info plus income and assets and liabilities.

With a tax agent you might just provide them with an amount of interest incurred. Without digging deeper they will not know whether the interest is deductible or not.

With a doctor you might say you have a headache. The might suggest a panadol or a CT scan depending on the answers to their questions.

There is no right answer with broking - but there are wrong answers!

 

This is something you will need to ask each broker. Some firms outsource in the philipines (as do many accountants). My company doesn't.

 

What would be the % who use this option and does OS processing impact the response time.

 

Wow, so posaibility is some brokers from here might be outsourcing to Philipines...humm

 

I have no idea. Many of the larger firms do, prob not many smaller companies though.

 

No idea what the percentage is.

Getting someone else to do your processing and paperwork can free up a lot of time, so it may be an overall improvement. Personally I like to have an assistant at the desk beside me to help with this. Having my assistant working from home right now isn't ideal.

 

If you're concerned, just ask them. But be aware that it's highly likely that what ever bank you go to will also have OS staff in some capacity.

 

In my opinion, it sounds like you're trying to find a reason to not use a broker, like you're skeptical of them, you might be better served going to a bank direct?

 

Every business that collects individual data outsources some elements of this. It's just a fact of life living in this century. Part of my credit licensing process requires me to be very aware of my own data security as well as that of any third parties used.

I dare say that a lot more data is breached via the banks than via brokers.

 

Have you heard about Due Diligence?

 

Have you heard of Analysis paralysis?

 

Given all MBs structure loan using their own strategy- does it mean all MBs are qualified for loan structuring or one need to have special qualification to advice on Loan structuring?

MB = best interest rate + best structure as a bundle?

 

My view is that you need to be licenced in tax to advise on loan structuring as taxation aspects are a major part. Of course those not licensed will disagree

 

We know how to structure loans to make the most of tax benefits currently available.

We don’t advise on tax issues. I always get clients to run the proposed structure passed their accountant and have never had any push-back.

I have, however, had people ditch their accountants to find one more investment savvy!

 

Structuring loans for tax purposes isn't exactly rocket science. It's mostly a matter of separating accounts according to how the money will be used. Whether the interest on each of these accounts is deductible or not is up to your accountant.

Lending strategy to help clients meet certain goals is somewhat trickier as it requires navigating policies across different lenders to get the best outcome. As this is credit advice, MBs are certainly licensed to discuss this. Lenders are as well, but they only tend to know their own policies, not those of their competitors.

 

How can a broker advise on the loan shuffle strategy or the debt recycling strategies without knowing tax law?

 

Are 'knowing', and 'advising' the same thing?

If someone comes to me and says, "Jess, I want to debt recycle my home loan", I can do that because I know what that is and how to set it up. Am I providing tax advice? No, I'm not.

If they don't know about debt recycling, and I can see it could potentially put them in a better position, can I let them know the concept of the strategy, and how we'd set up the loans if they proceed? Yes, I can, along with a direction to confirm it's all good with their tax person.

It's called - 'having a team'.

In an ideal world, the tax person would have already have that conversation - but in reality, most people only talk to the tax person at tax time, not when they're thinking of buying a property.

And that's too late.

 

Debt recycling involves converting non-deductible debt into deductible debt. As such it is pure tax advice, but there is a need to set up loans in such a way to facilitate this.

Anyone using a broker for debt recycling should ask, in writing, if the broker's insurance covers them for the tax aspects.

Without giving tax advice a broker could potentially say, split your loan into different splits for different uses. That is about the extent they should go I think.