Sometimes our clients can be their own worst enemies.

This can be either intentional or through ignorance.

Some clients will omit to tell you certain facts because they are concerned that their loan may not be approved, or even out of embarrassment (for example defaults etc.)

Others will genuinely not realise that they are not giving you the full story.

An example I had recently was a client who I submitted as a PAYG client, she had the payslips and the PAYG summary.  The client had advised me that she was an employee of the company and had been so for a number of years.  Serviceability was great as was every other aspect of the application.

Of course, what was not mentioned was that the company was owned by a relative who had also added my client as a Director of the company.

As far as the client was concerned, she was an employee.  From a credit perspective, she's really a self-employed applicant.  Unfortunately this type of situation wastes time and means for reworks, that is if the lender doesn't drop the deal altogether.

So, as a broker it is important to dig and dig deeper.  This was a great client with an impeccable financial history and so I didn't see the need to run a credit check on her prior to application.  That simple step would have saved me having to rework the entire file.

While in the process of building a rappoire with your clients, focus on convincing them that they need to let you know it all, warts and all.  By knowing the full situation, you can structure the application accordingly or in some cases advise the client that you simply can't assist them.  Don't be afraid to walk away from a scenario if you don't think you can't assist - your time is valuable too.