What a mortgage leaves open at completion
The pension, savings, will and business questions a mortgage completion leaves open, and how to raise them with a client without giving regulated advice.
The pension, savings, will and business questions a mortgage completion leaves open, and how to raise them with a client without giving regulated advice.
Completion is one of the largest financial moments in a person’s life. A client takes on a debt that will run for decades, often at the same time as moving home, starting a family or changing how they earn. You arrange the mortgage and place the protection that covers it, and then your file, the solicitor’s file and the estate agent’s involvement all close.
The wider conversation often does not happen at completion. An unreviewed pension, savings in cash, a missing will or a business with no cover on its owner stay unaddressed, because the meeting was about the house. A partnership lets you pass those questions to E&G without giving advice you are not authorised to give.
By completion the lender has assessed the loan, the solicitor has handled the conveyancing and the estate agent has been paid. Of those professionals, you are the one whose relationship is built on the client’s wider financial position, and you are there when their commitments increase.
The mortgage is placed and, in most cases, so is the protection that repays it if the borrower dies or cannot work. That part is yours to do. A completion also tends to expose questions beyond the loan:
The mortgage does not address any of these.
Three things keep the gap open. The first is timing: completion is busy, and the client is focused on getting the keys. The second is remit: your permissions cover the mortgage and its protection, and stop there. The third is that the client does not know who to ask. A client who has just made their first monthly payment may not go looking for a pension adviser on their own.
Under your own permissions you can advise on the mortgage and on the protection that sits around it: life cover, critical illness cover and income protection. The completion gap is about the questions that reach past protection, into areas your permissions do not cover.
Pensions, investments and estate planning are regulated advice that you must not give. Recommending that a client consolidate their pensions, move savings into an investment, or restructure their affairs to reduce a future inheritance-tax bill all need permissions your brokerage does not hold. E&G holds those permissions, so the introduction passes the regulated part to the firm authorised for it.
You spot the moment and make an introduction. At completion, or at the remortgage that follows years later, you say a sentence about the pension, the savings or the will, and with the client’s agreement you introduce them to E&G. E&G gives the regulated advice, runs the administration and carries the compliance. You stay in view, the client gets joined-up advice at the point it is most useful, and you share in the recurring value of the business written.
The gap looks different for different clients, and the same introduction handles all of them:
The introduction brings regulated advice to the client when they need it, at a point in life when decisions about pensions, savings and the estate have long-term effects. Because the advice is joined up with the mortgage you have already arranged, the client's plan is built by professionals who talk to each other.
You introduce, and E&G advises on the regulated products. You record the client’s consent before anything moves. You let E&G answer the regulated questions, even when you know the client well enough to guess the answer. The boundary is written into an introducer agreement, and the same document answers the question if your network or your professional-indemnity insurer asks what the arrangement is.
Yes. Advising on the mortgage and the protection that covers it is within your permissions and is part of serving the client well. The completion gap is about what sits beyond that: pensions, investments and estate planning, which need permissions your brokerage does not hold. The partnership adds that layer without changing the protection work you already do.
You can raise the subject and suggest the client speak to someone authorised. What you cannot do is advise: you must not recommend a pension transfer, an investment or an estate-planning step, or tell the client which option suits them. The introduction stays on the right side of that line, because E&G gives the advice and you open the door to it.
Completion is busy, which is why the introduction is one sentence and nothing more at that stage. On the day the keys change hands you note that there is more to look at and offer to connect the client with a firm that handles it, then letting E&G pick up the timing from there.
The client sees you thinking about their whole position as well as the loan, and E&G works alongside you. You keep the mortgage relationship and add a second reason for the client to stay with your firm over the years.
What changes for the client and for you when the mortgage advice and the wealth advice come from people who talk to each other and work from the same picture.
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