The mortgage broker fact-find: what to collect, and how to get it back before the first meeting

The fact-find is where every home loan starts, and it is where most of the delay hides. Not in the lender’s queue, not in the valuation, but in the fortnight between the first phone call and the day the client finally sends the last payslip. This guide covers what a complete fact-find collects, the documents that go with it, and how to get the whole thing back before you sit down together.

What the fact-find is for

Before you can recommend a loan you need the full picture: who the client is, what they earn, what they own and owe, what they spend, and what they actually want the loan to do. Every recommendation, every serviceability check and every compliance note you write later leans on this one set of answers. A thin fact-find means guessing, and guessing means rework once the lender asks the question you should have asked first.

What a complete fact-find collects

The people

• Full name, date of birth, contact details and identification for every applicant
• Residential history, including the current address and how long they have been there
• Dependants: who relies on the applicants, and their ages
• For a couple or co-borrowers, the same set of answers from each applicant, in their own words

Employment and income

• Each applicant’s employer, role, employment type and how long they have been there
• Base income, and anything on top of it: overtime, bonuses, allowances, commission, rental income
• For the self-employed, the business, its structure and its financials

Assets, liabilities and living expenses

• Savings, property, vehicles, shares and superannuation
• Every liability: home loans, car loans, personal loans, credit cards and their limits, buy-now-pay-later, study debt
• Living expenses by category, as the client actually spends, not as they wish they did

The deal

• The purpose: purchase, refinance, construction, investment, or a top-up
• The property, the price or estimated value, and the deposit and where it is coming from
• Needs and objectives: fixed or variable, offset, redraw, the loan term, and what matters most to them
• Anything foreseeable that changes the picture: parental leave, a job change, retirement, a new business

The documents that go with it

The answers tell you what to ask for. Identification for each applicant. Payslips and, depending on the income, an employment letter, a group certificate or tax returns. Bank statements. Statements for every liability. For a purchase, the contract of sale; for a refinance, the current loan statements; for an investor, evidence of the rent. The exact list depends on the client and the lender, which is exactly why a generic checklist emailed to everyone causes so much back-and-forth. Half the items do not apply, and the ones that do are easy to miss.

Why it comes back slowly

Most of the delay is not the client being difficult. It is the format.

• A long PDF form on a phone screen is abandoned halfway. The client means to come back to it and does not.
• An email with a list of documents gets answered in pieces, over days, from three different devices.
• Two applicants sharing one form means one of them answers for both, and the other never actually reads it.
• Nobody chases until the broker chases, so the file waits for the broker to remember.

How to get it back before the first meeting

1. Send one link, not a form and a list. The questions, the document uploads and the signatures should all live in the same place, so the client is never wondering which email had the thing they need.
2. Ask one question at a time. A single question per screen with a progress bar is finished far more often than a form. It also means the client can stop and pick it up later without losing their place.
3. Build the document list from the answers. Someone who is not self-employed should never see a request for business financials. Ask only for what applies, and ask for it at the moment the answer makes it relevant.
4. Give each applicant their own link. Each person answers their own questions and signs their own documents. You combine the two halves into one file at your end.
5. Get the credit guide and privacy consent signed in the same flow. Documents that need signing should appear right where the client already is, not arrive later as a separate task.
6. Let the system do the chasing. Automatic reminders to anyone who stalls, and a way to ask for a specific missing document without writing another email.

Before you meet

With the fact-find back, the first appointment changes shape. You are no longer collecting; you are confirming. Check the income against the payslips, look at the liabilities the client forgot to mention, and spend the hour on the recommendation instead of the paperwork. That is the whole point of getting it in first.