The change applies to the complete range of Halifax products.
In an e-mail sent to brokers just a week prior to the changeover, Halifax said that all remaining paper applications had be received at its ISC by close of business on Thursday 30 September.
But Simon Chalk at Mortgage Portfolio Services, said: “This is typical of Halifax giving us just one week’s notice. To make an online application, the intermediary must have the Halifax software installed on their PC. Yet Halifax won’t accept liability if loading the software leads to any corruption of the PC.
“Not only that, just imagine if every lender adopted the same position; could anyone’s PC hold 150-plus lenders’ software? Would an intermediary be in breach of FSA rules by only installing a handful of lenders software while claiming ‘whole of market status’?”
Chalk added: “When we tried installing Halifax’s software last year, it failed to work. Three weeks later, Halifax’s IT department admitted defeat acknowledging that the problem was at their end. Recently they advised me to ‘wait for version 6’ as earlier versions ‘had operating problems’.
“Online trading does not yet work properly, neither does it speed up the administration.”
Paul Fincham, spokesman for Halifax, said: “Basically this is a house-keeping exercise. We have been online since January last year and our BDMs have been working to help brokers get online. The vast majority of intermediaries send applications online and we are simply formalising this.”
He added: “We are not closing the door to advisers who have trouble getting themselves online. If they are experiencing difficulties they should contact their local BDM who would be happy to assist them.”
