Mortgage Brokers: Keep Hold of the Reins

In the last edition I returned to Aesop's Four Oxen and the Lion to illustrate what independent property professionals could achieve if they stopped standing apart and began using their collective strength.

Another of Aesop's fables carries a different warning, and this one feels particularly relevant to mortgage brokers. In The Horse, the Hunter and the Stag, the horse accepts the hunter's help to achieve something he cannot easily accomplish alone. He allows the hunter to put a saddle on his back and a bridle in his mouth. The plan succeeds, but afterwards the horse discovers that the hunter has no intention of giving up control. He got what he wanted, but somebody else ended up holding the reins.

For independent mortgage brokers, there is a remarkably modern question hidden inside that ancient story. As lenders, lead generators, introducers, networks, technology platforms and increasingly connected corporate property ecosystems offer greater convenience, who ultimately controls the relationship with the client?

Brokers are powerful, but that should not create complacency

Mortgage brokers remain enormously important to consumers. Santander reported that 89% of its property purchases in the early part of 2026 came through brokers, while 63% of homeowners in its research said they could not have gone through the homebuying or remortgaging process without broker support.

The FCA recorded £1.6 billion of mortgage-broking revenue in 2025 and 32,990 mortgage adviser posts. Its methodology changed in 2025, so historical comparisons need care, but the figures demonstrate the scale and importance of the intermediary market. That is a position worth protecting.

The risk is not necessarily that somebody announces tomorrow that independent brokers are no longer required. Change is rarely that obvious. The greater danger is that increasingly connected corporate journeys make the independent broker progressively less visible. If a consumer enters the home-moving process through one ecosystem and is seamlessly directed towards connected mortgage, conveyancing and other services, nobody needs to formally exclude the independent broker. The client simply never reaches them.

Brokers should therefore distinguish between having a powerful market position today and controlling their route to tomorrow's customer.

The lead generation problem has not disappeared

I wrote about lead generation platforms more than two years ago. Some providers have changed their models since then, so it would be wrong simply to repeat every criticism from that article. For example, Unbiased currently says mortgage enquiries purchased through its service are exclusive to the adviser who buys them, with mortgage enquiries starting at £10 plus VAT. It also allows advisers to purchase additional geographical locations to increase their visibility.

So this is not an argument that paid lead generation is inherently bad. A good lead source can form a perfectly sensible part of a broker's marketing strategy. The concern is dependency.

Recent research published through a major forum used by brokers found that 91.7% of advisers surveyed considered generating more leads vital during 2026, while 64.7% described lead generation as somewhat or very difficult. More than four in ten rated the quality of the leads they generated as only OK or poor. Another industry initiative launched this year was specifically aimed at helping advisers reduce their reliance on bought leads, algorithms, individual introducers and inconsistent referral sources. The underlying problem is therefore still very much alive.

The mortgage broker is already an intermediary between the borrower and a complicated lending market. It is strange that several more intermediaries can sit between the broker and the person who actually needs their advice. The broker provides the expertise, carries the regulatory responsibility and builds the relationship, yet can find themselves paying another business simply for access to the customer. The question is not whether brokers should ever buy leads. It is whether they want their future pipeline to depend upon continually renting somebody else's audience.

Local still matters

Technology has made it possible for mortgage advice to be delivered nationally, but that does not mean locality has stopped mattering. People are still buying homes in particular streets, towns and communities. Their estate agents are often local. Their property issues are local. Recommendations and professional reputations still travel through local networks. The fact that lead-generation platforms themselves sell additional geographical visibility demonstrates that location continues to have commercial value.

WiggyWam approaches this differently.

Through the Marketplace, local groups, professional profiles, ratings, reviews, articles and discussions, a Finance Maverick can become visible within the property community rather than appearing only when somebody buys an enquiry. A consumer can find the broker, understand who they are, see what other clients think of them and contact them directly. There is no lead reseller sitting between the two and no additional charge simply because a consumer wants to make contact.

That allows the broker to build something far more valuable than a database of purchased leads. They build their own reputation and their own relationships at both a national and local level within.

The broker should not disappear once the application is submitted

There is another problem that deserves just as much attention. The mortgage is fundamental to the home move, yet brokers can spend much of the transaction standing outside it. The application may be proceeding perfectly while something significant changes elsewhere. A survey creates a problem. Legal enquiries delay matters. The chain stalls. An expected completion date moves. A mortgage offer begins approaching expiry. The broker may eventually need to deal with the financial consequences, but they can be one of the last people to discover what is happening.

Industry discussion has increasingly recognised this. Brokers have been encouraged to remain engaged with customers throughout the whole home-moving journey rather than constantly moving on to the next lead once the mortgage has been arranged.

Government reform is moving in a similar direction. The 2026 home buying and selling roadmap talks explicitly about reducing duplication, improving information sharing and developing technology that allows consumers and professionals to manage, track and progress a home move more effectively. The mortgage does not sit outside the property transaction. It is the finance supporting it. The broker needs to remain connected to what is happening without becoming responsible for everybody else's work.

Connection does not require everybody's data

This is where an important distinction needs to be made about WiggyWam. The Moving Hub is not intended to become the broker's mortgage CRM, sourcing platform, compliance system or financial-document store. There is no reason for WiggyWam to hold the borrower's bank statements, payslips, affordability calculations, credit information, mortgage application, source-of-funds evidence or regulated financial advice. Those remain exactly where they belong: within the broker's own secure professional systems.

What the wider transaction needs is far simpler. Has the broker been instructed? Has an Agreement in Principle been obtained? Has the application been submitted? Has the valuation taken place? Has the mortgage offer been issued? Is something outstanding that might affect exchange or completion? Those are transaction updates, not confidential financial information.

The broker can update the relevant task or milestone and see appropriate progress elsewhere in the move. Other authorised professionals can understand where the mortgage sits without seeing anything they have no reason to see. The broker keeps the financial file. The Moving Hub keeps the transaction connected.

It is about bringing people together too

That connection is not simply about dashboards and status indicators. There are real people behind every transaction. A buyer may have a question the estate agent cannot answer. A conveyancer may need confirmation that something affecting the timetable has been dealt with. The broker may need to understand why the expected completion date has suddenly moved.

Today, those conversations are scattered across emails, telephone calls and messages, often with somebody acting as a messenger between two professionals who could have resolved the matter directly. The Moving Hub brings the authorised people together around the same transaction.

Its communication tools allow relevant professionals to ask and answer appropriate questions while keeping confidential work inside their own systems. The buyer and seller remain connected to their move without suddenly being given access to private professional conversations. The objective is not to make everyone see everything. It is to stop everyone working in isolation.

Sometimes progress does not require another API, another integration or another data feed. It requires the right people being able to speak to one another at the right time.

WiggyWam facilitates the transaction. It does not own the customer journey.

This distinction is central to what we are building. Large corporate ecosystems can create a joined-up customer journey by owning or commercially controlling more of the businesses surrounding that customer.

WiggyWam takes a different approach. We do not need to own the estate agency, mortgage brokerage, conveyancing firm or search company to allow them to work together effectively. The client remains the client of the professional they chose. The Finance Maverick retains their borrower. The Property Maverick retains their seller. The Magic Circle Maverick retains their legal client. Their fees remain theirs. Their professional judgement remains theirs. Their confidential work remains within their own systems. WiggyWam provides the infrastructure around them.

It helps people complete information, brings the property documents together, connects the Seller's Pack to the live move and provides tasks, milestones, appropriate communication and progress updates so the transaction can keep moving. We are not trying to own the customer journey. We are helping real people and independent professionals manage the journey together.

Good partnerships should add expertise, not take away choice

Being independent does not mean refusing to work with specialist partners. Our Seller's Pack includes an integrated search partner because we believe their service goes beyond simply delivering another digital report. Alongside the data comes human expertise, local knowledge and established one-to-one relationships with local authorities, helping them resolve queries and achieve faster turnaround times that can help move the transaction forward sooner.

That is why we chose to integrate them, but the choice remains with the user. When ordering a Seller's Pack, they can simply indicate that they already have, or intend to obtain, the searches elsewhere and use their own provider. We do not restrict that choice. What we cannot guarantee is the turnaround time, level of support or service provided by an alternative supplier. The principle is simple: we make excellent support readily available, but we do not force anyone to use it.

That principle matters. A partnership should be included because it improves the transaction and gives professionals better information, not because the platform wants to funnel customers towards whoever pays the greatest commercial return. There is a difference between connecting excellent people and controlling where the client must go. WiggyWam must always remain on the right side of that distinction.

The power of a corporate without becoming one

Now imagine what this means when the wider Maverick ecosystem begins working together. A Property Maverick introduces a well-prepared property to the market. The seller's information and documents are already being organised through the Seller's Pack. A buyer arrives and chooses their own Finance Maverick and conveyancer. The broker carries out all confidential mortgage work within their own professional systems. The conveyancer performs their legal work within theirs. The estate agent continues operating through their own agency systems. But the people themselves remain connected through the Moving Hub.

They know where the move stands. They know what has been completed. They know where appropriate action is required. They can communicate without repeatedly reconstructing the transaction through third parties. Nobody has to own the other businesses to give the consumer a joined-up experience. That is the fundamental difference. The infrastructure is shared. The relationships are not owned by the infrastructure. It gives independent professionals many of the benefits of a connected corporate ecosystem without requiring them to become one.

Technology should remove friction, not the broker

Mortgage technology will continue to improve. That should be welcomed. Brokers already operate across fragmented technology stacks, and new systems are appearing specifically to reduce re-keying, duplicated administration and time lost moving between platforms. That is exactly where technology should be focused.

A highly experienced broker should not spend their working life transferring information between screens or chasing updates somebody else could have provided in seconds. Their value lies in understanding the client whose circumstances do not fit neatly into an automated box. It lies in knowing that the obvious lender on a sourcing result may not actually accept the case. It lies in understanding complex income, unusual properties, adverse credit and the thousand small nuances learned through experience. Technology should create more time for that expertise. The Moving Hub applies the same principle to the transaction. It does not need to take over the broker's work. It needs to remove the blindness surrounding it.

Keep hold of the reins

The horse in Aesop's fable was not foolish because he accepted help. His mistake was failing to consider what that help might eventually cost him in control. That question feels increasingly important for independent mortgage brokers. Who owns the relationship? Who controls the lead? Who owns the audience? Who decides which professional the consumer sees next? Is technology supporting the broker, or gradually positioning itself between the broker and their client?

And WiggyWam should be judged by exactly the same test. We do not want the reins. The broker retains their client, financial information, professional judgement and business. The other professionals retain theirs. Our role is to bring the right people together, give them the appropriate information they need to understand the move and remove the unnecessary friction that prevents them working effectively as a team. Your client. Your systems. Your judgement. One connected transaction. That is what Connected by WiggyWam. Independent by design. should mean.

The future should not require independent mortgage brokers to surrender control in order to gain the advantages of a connected ecosystem.

Our job is to give them the infrastructure that helps them keep hold of the reins.