Phil Heaton-Jones, head of mortgage product management and consulting at Marlborough Stirling, commented: “The interface between lenders and surveyors is one of the key business-to-business ‘touch points’ within the mortgage market. Modern technology can help companies improve the efficiency of this interaction thereby greatly reducing operational costs for lenders, legal firms and surveyors. Instruct By Net is designed to play this pivotal role.”
The company believes that Instruct By Net can drive up to 25 per cent of costs out of the mortgage supply chain by increasing efficiency through the automation of the interface between lenders, lawyers and surveyors, each of whom can communicate with each other via the web-based Instruct By Net system. The lawyers or surveyors can be a lender-owned internal team, a single outsourced supplier or a panel managed by a third party organisation.
Instruct By Net enables the two-way flow of data between lenders’ existing IT systems and the professional services provider, removing the need for paper-based processes or for data to be re-entered. Once a lender sets up and allocates a case on Instruct By Net, the software automatically manages it throughout its lifecycle and ensures it is assigned to the appropriate professional to undertake the relevant task. For example, the system can be tailored to select professionals based on geographic proximity, capacity or cost.
Cases are tracked and can only proceed when all the necessary tasks have been completed. Full management information is available to measure the performance of users and match this against agreed service levels.
Instruct By Net has recently gone live at Direct Valuations, a leading panel management provider of property survey and valuation services in the UK. The system is expected to help Direct Valuations reduce costs, enhance service delivery and support growth plans. The system receives valuation instructions from lenders electronically, automatically selects an appropriate surveyor from Direct Valuations’ database of over 500 firms and issues an instruction electronically. Surveyors can update cases via a secure website and once completed a valuation report is sent back via Direct Valuations for the lender to view.
Steph Gregg, operations director at Direct Valuations, commented: “Our customised version of Instruct By Net enables our surveyors and lenders to submit and receive valuation information real-time over the internet. This greatly reduces the time associated with the valuation process, enabling lenders to make quicker lending decisions. The system enhances the service we can provide to both lenders and our panel of surveyors and is set to support our future growth plans.”
