Customer or Client: What's the difference?

Customers are loan applicants who have not chosen to establish an agency relationship with their mortgage broker in writing. Every mortgage broker owes the following basic duties to borrowers they deal with as customers:

Honesty: Brokers must be truthful and accurate when providing information.
Accounting: Brokers must accurately account for any money or property received on behalf of the customer.

Clients receive a higher level of services than customers. A borrower becomes a mortgage broker's client by completing a formal written agency agreement which requires the broker to act as the client's agent and to promote their client's best interests. Palmetto Commercial Lending, LLC uses a written Service Agreement which clearly establishes the terms of the agreement and the obligations of both the loan applicant and the broker. Once you have entered into a service agreement with Palmetto Commercial Lending, LLC you can expect to receive the following client-level services:

Confidentiality: Broker will safeguard client's confidential business and personal information and not use client’s information for any purpose other than for the sole purpose of successfully obtaining financing for the client's project.
Disclosure: As an Upfront Mortgage Broker™ (UMB) Palmetto Commercial Lending discloses our total compensation in writing up front, and then works to get the best loan for our client.
Loyalty: Broker will promote client's best interests above all other parties to the transaction.
Reasonable Care and Skill: Broker will exercise due diligence and use reasonable best efforts to create, structure, process and submit a loan application and obtain a Preliminary Loan Approval, Letter of Interest or other similar document from a lender in client’s behalf.

Wholesale vs. Retail: Who does your Broker really work for?

Read our commitment as an Upfront Commercial Mortgage Broker!

The Upfront Mortgage Brokers™ Commitment was conceived by Jack Guttentag, Professor of Finance Emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, "The Mortgage Professor", as a mortgage brokers' ethical Code of Conduct. For more information on Upfront Mortgage Brokers contact us or visit the Upfront Mortgage Brokers Association (UMBA) website.

"But there are some people, nevertheless - and I am one of them - who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy." - G. K. Chesterton