How to scale a mortgage brokerage without hiring more staff

A mortgage brokerage can carry more live cases without hiring another administrator or case manager by giving an AI worker the work that runs the same way on every case: chasing documents, checking what arrives and sending the written updates, from the case record and in wording the firm has approved. An adviser's time goes on advice; the administrator's goes on documents, lender requirements and telling three people where the case is, and that is what runs out first. The adviser keeps the advice, and the administrator keeps the judgement calls and the lender's phone line.

Why do administrators run out before advisers?

In a brokerage with enough enquiries, what stops it adding advisers is that each writes cases faster than the administrators can package them. One broker describes the administrator's job in its own advert as preparing, packaging and submitting applications, keeping documentation complete, coordinating lender requirements and chasing outstanding items, and giving clients updates proactive enough to reduce the chasers. That per-case workload is why the number that forces the next hire is live cases per administrator.

What makes a case heavy is that its work arrives in rounds. The first is the document list: payslips and bank statements dated within the lender's window, proof of deposit, proof of address, and for the self-employed the SA302s and tax year overviews. What comes back is rarely the whole set, and the first payslip goes out of date while the last statement is chased. Next comes the keying of the fact-find into the CRM, a decision in principle sent to the lender and, wherever the CRM and the lender are not linked, the full application entered again on the lender's own site. The underwriter's further request then starts the chasing again, and all the while three parties each want to know where the case is, whether or not it has moved. Each case also needs the record of why the advice was suitable, kept under the FCA's mortgage rules for at least three years.

The case does not end at completion either. Almost every mortgage you arrange has a date its rate ends, after which the client moves to the lender's reversion rate, normally a higher one. Lenders signed up to the Mortgage Charter let a borrower lock in a new deal up to six months ahead, so every completed case comes back as a review that has to be opened on time. A brokerage's live cases are therefore its new cases plus the reviews falling due, and the second pile grows with every year of trading.

Which case work can an AI worker take on?

An AI worker is given a defined job, approved wording, limits and a named person who checks its work. In a brokerage, hand it whatever runs the same way on every case.

• Document chasing. The lender's list goes as one clear request, with reminders at the intervals you set, and each arrival is compared with what was asked for: the right document, every page, the right dates, readable. The chasing clients for documents role describes that split step by step, and our guide to chasing case documents from enquiry to offer goes through each step.

• Case updates. "Where is my application?" is answered from the stage on the case record, in wording approved for each stage. The first-line client support role covers it. Rate and product questions go to the adviser.

• The fact-find. It is sent ahead of the first meeting, chased, and keyed into the CRM with the factual sections of the suitability letter filled for the adviser to complete, as the fact-find and suitability paperwork role sets out.

• Rate end dates. One register holds every client's product end date, and your approved invitation to a review goes at the lead time you choose. The invitation is to a conversation with the adviser and says nothing about rates or products.

Each role is set out on the mortgage brokers page. Together they are meant to let a new adviser's cases reach the back office as checking and decisions, with the chasing already done.

Where is the line between admin and advice?

The work below stays with the adviser and the administrator, and where the line falls is settled with you before anything is built.

• Advice. Under the FCA's mortgage rules the advising firm must take reasonable steps to make sure the mortgage is suitable, and that judgement is the adviser's. The agent's part ends where a recommendation begins: nothing about a lender, a product or how much someone could borrow comes from it.

• Anything about one client's circumstances. Routine requests and reminders go in wording approved in advance; a message about one client's own position waits for the adviser, each time.

• Submitting the application to the lender, and whether a document is good enough.

• The lender's broker line and the solicitor's office. The agent makes no phone calls; it leaves the administrator a call list for the morning.

What should a brokerage write down first?

Write down what today lives in the administrators' heads: the document list for each kind of case and each lender you use most, and the wording a client may receive at each stage. Then run one role, usually document chasing, against a number you can count from the CRM: days from the first request to a complete pack, or documents outstanding past a limit you set. Every message the agent sends is logged with who approved the wording.

The reasoning for any business is in how to scale a business without hiring more staff; in a brokerage the FCA also draws the line between admin and advice. How the model works day to day is in what AI staff are. Our starting price is on the homepage.

For a mortgage brokerage an AI worker would do the document chasing and the case updates in wording you have approved, with the advice left where the rules put it. Start with the document list for the lenders you use most, and talk to our agent.