Complex Mortgage Cases and Being a Voice of Reason - Chris Sykes

Chris Sykes of MSP Financial Solutions joins The New Leaf Podcast to discuss how genuinely complex mortgage cases are structured in practice, why lender judgement matters more than automation, and how specialist building societies can unlock solutions others miss. Chris walks through a real case involving a portfolio landlord with multiple properties and projects, explaining how a pre‑fund facility was used to place the deal outside standard affordability models. The conversation also explores Chris’s role in the financial press as a calm, credible voice for borrowers, and how that visibility builds trust over time. This episode will resonate with advisers working with complex or high‑net‑worth clients, and anyone focused on clarity, experience, and long‑term credibility. 

The New Leaf podcast is for people turning over a new leaf in financial advice. Learn more about how New Leaf Distribution supports advisers at www.newleafdistribution.co.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the New Leaf Podcast. And on today's episode, I'm joined by a really interesting character, Chris Sykes, who's recently started a business in financial services. He's been employed for a long time, but now has moved to self-employment. So we're going to hear about the challenges he's faced in doing that.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

I don't think I would have done it from day one. I think I wasn't mature enough. I didn't have the experience. And even back then, you could even feel some age discrimination working with clients and then being like, who's who's this sort of child advising me of a 50-year-old on a mortgage? What do they know about mortgages? We're going to hear how Blue Leaf have helped in that journey. A lot of networks built for a normal broker. We went with yourselves because you you have a huge access to market. I'd probably even say I'm rivaling in the network space.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

And we're also going to hear from how he's leveraged the media to really build social proof around himself personally to build his brand.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Responded to one thing, and then the the snowball just starts rolling. And I what I try to do in the media is be a bit of a voice of reason. Mortgages aren't taught in schools, and a lot of the things that you see in the press are very scary to borrowers. I sometimes, when clients sort of return to me after their fixed rates and things, often they'll say, Oh Chris, I've loved what you've been saying in the press. And you don't realise, but clients follow it. So if you do get the opportunity to comment in the press, it's really good. Listen in and enjoy the episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Hi Chris, uh, welcome to the new podcast. Uh great to have you on today. How are you doing? Yeah, thank you very much for having me on. I'm doing excellently, thank you. Obviously, today you're here speaking about your business MSP Financial Solutions. Uh but you've gone on a bit of a journey to get here. And uh obviously previously you were employed, and now you set up your own business with your business partners, uh Donnie and Mike. Uh so uh I wanted to go back to the beginning first. Like what made you get into financial services in the first instance?

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Yeah, so I I did a degree in business and finance, and um, as part of that degree, uh you had the opportunity to do a placement year, which is effectively a year in industry between your second and third year to effectively uh get you into a workplace early, give you kind of a a step above other graduates when you do come to finishing. And um I'd I applied to lots of different firms like Microsoft and Google and all these exciting firms, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I'd know I wanted to do business and finance, but uh that's not really a job. So I um I've I've kind of fell into working with a mortgage broker one-on-one, uh, a one-man band who um really is where I cut my teeth in the industry. And it was a great opportunity that year, um, learning, really feet on the ground, understanding, and and I really started to enjoy mortgages, um, which is not really something you necessarily think of as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Maybe it was in your young twenties, like, oh yeah, I just love mortgages.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah. Yes, exactly. So um I I kind of fell into it there and then with it while doing my final year of my degree, did CMAP on my own, and then I started off um as soon as I finished uni, went straight into a a firm on an employed basis who um trained me up further and um helped me develop my skills and really let me learn the trade and um develop myself.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

I mean, would you say that's a good idea for someone who's quite young coming into it? So when you started industry, you would have been what 20, 19, 20 years old?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yeah. Yeah, so twenty-one, something like that. I it was it was a great way for me to to cut my teeth, to start learning complex cases, and and it was I I'd I'd I I started in a firm that really gave me the opportunity to grow as an advisor. So it was a good way for me to get into the industry. It's by far no means the only way to get into the industry, um, but it it was a really valuable way for me too.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

And now and now you've got this business, like we said, MSP Financial Solutions. Uh I believe it stands for your CERN initials for your CERN. That's right. So the three the three guys together. Uh and you all worked together actually, didn't you? And you've built built that business now uh from from being friends and colleagues over the years. Uh obviously a big deal, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

It it's a huge jump. Yeah. It's a huge jump. And for me, it was kind of the natural progression in my career. Um, I I always have friends poke fun at me for for sort of um my entrepreneurial spirit through the years, selling suites in school, and then uh going from there to as soon as I could washing cars in the summer, to as soon as I got my national insurance number, starting work on weekends, and I'd I fortunately picked up a job in a mission star restaurant as my first sort of proper job and uh on weekends, and and that teaches you hard work. They work very hard.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Which you need in this industry, because if you're setting up a business from scratch, especially, I know you've got experience, but it's still a big deal to Joe from employed to self-employed. Yeah. I don't I don't think it's possible. Well, it it might be, but if you were looking back at when you were 21 starting out, would you have done that from day one?

SPEAKER_00 5:07

I don't think I would have done it from day one. I think I wasn't mature enough, I didn't have the experience, and even back then you you could even feel some age discrimination working with working with clients and then being like, Who's who's this sort of child advising me a a 50-year-old on a mortgage? What do they know about mortgages? Yeah, sure. Um there's always a saying of how do you work in mortgages if you don't have one? So um it it really gave me the opportunity to to cut my teeth, but then I've always I think even in my initial job interview, I said one day I want to be a business owner, and I've said that throughout my career. I want to be a business owner, I want to to grow my own thing and work for myself, and now I'm I'm lucky enough to be doing that.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

And with this new company, MSP, what about six, seven months in now with New Leaf?

SPEAKER_00 6:00

We're only four months in is uh it's been a fantastic journey so far.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Yeah, so you you obviously were looking for places to set your business up and you decided to go the network route. Yeah, obviously we've had a relationship for many years, I've known you around the circuit, so to speak. Um and it uh you know I was really happy you know to to hear that you chosen us, but what made you choose newly? There's lots of options, would have been lots of options for you.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Yeah, there are so many options, and uh we spoke to a lot of different networks, and a lot for us is because of the types of cases we see, the lenders that we could work with were one of the most important things to us. So um quite frankly, I I spoke to a lot of networks and kind of described what might be a typical case for me and my clients, yeah. And some of them were you could just see in their faces that they didn't get it. If I had to explain to a a bog standard network what an asset slice is, they they just wouldn't understand it. It's like, is that showing on the tax returns? It's like, no, that's not what we're getting at here.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

So they try and pull the wall over your eyes, say, Oh yeah, we can we can probably do that, and then you get there, and it's like, no, we can't, we can't be.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

So there's a lot of networks built for a normal broker, so a brokerage that uses 20, 30 lenders a year, that's the high street names that everyone's heard of, and then maybe does one or two very complex lenders a year. But we went with yourselves because you you have a huge access to market. Yeah. Um, I probably even say I'm rivaling in the network space. Yeah. Um, it is very much like being directly authorized. Yeah. Um, and then something that we we hadn't actually considered when joining New Leaf is the support you get as well. Yeah. We joined for for the the lenders and and because we knew knew you and loved the sort of family side of things and and how you you're all connected in one way or another. That's a bit weird. Well, it it it's not weird because it's obviously a really good place to work, and it's nice to work with people that enjoy where they work. But um, but yeah, then since then the support we've had from you guys has been really good. I mean, yesterday, for example, I was on two different um video calls with with yourselves yesterday, one um with with Ying Tang, yeah. That's right, obviously came on an owner of another mortgage business in the market, but kind enough to give us some of his time to talk about how we can grow as businesses and individuals. Um so the the collaboration within the industry there, but then also just just sort of getting pumped on a Monday morning and and within that learning some marketing strategies.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah, I thought that guy um on the SEO and the website development and some of the simple strategies are worth worth looking at, weren't they? Um look go going forward then, obviously you've you've got this amazing platform. You are going able to access different lenders or m all the lenders you want, anyway, at least. And you're based in your your company's primarily based in London, isn't it? Yeah. So your your clientele is more London-based, London-centric, sort of high net worth sometimes, but also I guess you'll have quite complicated cases that might not be easy for a I guess you call a vanilla mortgage broker.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah. I mean that that's exactly it. We we specialise in the complex, we do mortgages for anyone anywhere. Um well, I say anywhere in the UK, the property needs to generally be in the UK. But um, but yeah, we we generally specialise in the more high net worth clients, um, more complex circumstances, uh, really taking into account, for example, people that don't have any income, but using assets that they have in the background to justify the lend in one way or another.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

So could you give us an example of uh a client that you've you've helped recently just to sort of give us some context on that?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah, of course. So I I love a complex case, and and sometimes those cases go through other brokers and um and and and can't be placed. So I have one particular example relatively recently that was um a portfolio landlord. Okay. They have a lot of properties mixed, residential, so buy to let's commercial properties, they also have like large blocks of garages that's for future development opportunities. So their income is complex. There were trust elements, there were various companies, there are various projects ongoing, so their income might be very high in uh in some years because they might have sold several properties that they built and low in other years. So cash flow was a major consideration on this one because most lenders sort of couldn't see how that we could justify the lend on a monthly basis. So I approached lots of lenders on this and and the specialist building societies um we approached on this. And um funny enough, I placed it in a certain way with with a specialist building society um using a prefund facility where the client effectively put enough money in an account with that building society to service the mortgage for a period of three years, which was the mortgage term as well. Yeah, and um effectively the mortgage is paid out of that account so that it's bought outside of their affordability on a monthly basis. Nice. And I later found out that another broker had actually submitted an application with the same lender. Right. I only found that out after application because I didn't give the client's name until after. With the same client, the same client, same lender. Okay, and they said we declined it with that other broker because of the way you've pitched it to us being the only way this is possible. Wow. Okay, that's amazing. Yeah, so it's it's just complex deals and finding a way to do them and using our knowledge of the industry and our contacts in the industry, because our contacts are so important to us, all of the different lenses we work with. Um really having those lender relationships is what gives you access to some of these complex cases.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

I mean that that that client then uh must have been a quite awkward conversation when you found out about that. But obviously, in the end, you've you've shown that shown the other broker up as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Yeah, yeah. I mean he didn't get past the other broker didn't get past the decision in principle stage. Um so I the client didn't actually really, which was a bit naughty, you didn't actually realise it had gone to that lender before. Oh but then um but then yeah, it we we've made it through and all all successfully.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

So you mentioned lender relationships being really important to you uh and then the guys. Uh I've seen on LinkedIn, obviously I see your posts and you're meeting different BDMs. I'm always out for a meal or he's having a great time, you know. Your friends are thinking, What is this job? I want to do this job now. Well, I thought it was a joke when he was 20. But you know, it's like uh yeah, there is a nice social element to it, obviously. But the the point is you're you're meeting BDMs, you think that's that's important. Why why yeah, what what's the value in a broker really spending time with BDMs? I know a lot of brokers who sometimes the attitude can be a little bit different. It's like, oh no BDM calling me. Oh, I can't be bothered to talk to them or whatever. Um, but it's something that we've seen on some of the successful people in this podcast that have been talking about, yeah. Lender lender relationships being almost as important as a client relationship. So, yeah, your thoughts on that would be great.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Yeah, so BDMs are your biggest advocate within a bank or building society or private bank, whatever they might be, they're your biggest advocate. And and knowing them and building trust with them is incredibly important because they can get used to you as a broker and understand that the quality of business you're bringing them is is high and that there is a way to do the deal, else you probably wouldn't have taken it on as a broker because you would have already sort of weasled out if there were elements that wouldn't work. So having those relationships both with business development managers, national account managers, even down to I I've got the numbers of some CEOs and COOs of different building societies that really, if um, if anything hits the fan, I can pick up the phone to. So I find it incredibly important because then you've got people casting eyes over your cases as they go in, but also those are the people that know the the ins and outs of the lender, they'll know the appetite, and also when you spend that time with them, you'll learn things that you can do as a broker that you might not have known because they are the ones that get the complex cases. So I will be learning from other brokers' cases as well because they'll be sharing them with me. Yeah, and then I'll know next time. Um, so for example, if somebody has an annex and they want to let it or Airbnb it, well, loads of lenders won't do that, but then you'll you'll pick up that really niche bit of criteria that a lender will do, and it might go to somebody quite vanilla as a lender, but it just has that hidden niche bit of criteria and allows you to do a case potentially a lot cheaper than another broker, for example.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Yeah, and uh I mean going from that, obviously you've you've picked up um you know some really good growth and tips and things because you're learning from that, aren't you? Obviously, yourself. So over the years that's be I I suppose that's been really helpful because now you get a client coming in to you now and you probably have an idea roughly where you can probably place it before you even start researching.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

That's it, that's it. And uh I don't do it for this, but uh some lenders introduce me clients as well where they can't help, yeah. They then refer it to me because they know I can help.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Do you think as well, partly your reputation is you know quite well received in the industry, not just because you're building relationships with lenders, but you are well known also in the media as well. And there's that social proof element to your work in the sense that you're you know you're being quoted quite regularly in some of the major publications like the the nationals. Yeah, I know you're in the telegraph, Times, um, you know, FT quite often. Yeah. Um that that must have been a difficult thing to get into. I mean, how did you do that exactly?

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Do you do you know what? It it actually wasn't as difficult as I as I thought. I kind of fell into it as as you often do in in life. I kind of responded to to one thing, and uh this is probably six or seven years ago, something like that. But responded to one thing, and then the the snowball just starts rolling. And I what I try to do in the media is be a bit of a voice of reason because there's a lot of um people out there that are just in the press to to be that headline, to to be brokers say this about mortgage rates. Yeah. Whereas there's a lot of more there's a lot more nuance to these sorts of things. There's some journalists I won't work with, for example, because um I feel my fingers have been burnt with them by them sort of trying to grab a headline out of something I've said. We've spent 20 minutes on the phone and they've used one sentence that didn't have any context. Right. So I try to be that more voice of reason because mortgages aren't taught in schools, and a lot of the things that you see in the press are very scary to borrowers. So having more of a voice of reason there I think is incredibly important to the the clients that I work with.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

And how do you leverage that? That you know, those those comments that you make that go into the press, how do you leverage that from a marketing perspective?

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Probably not as well as I should. As ever. Uh there's always a million things to do, and growing a growing a brand, growing a brokerage. But I think having it there for your clients to read through, sharing it on on socials, etc., is very important because quite frankly, I I'm sharing the words that I believe in. So I if I share it on my socials and things like that as well, it gets a message out further.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

I can imagine there's a credibility, you know, positivity from this because if a client was to find out or see, or you shared that you know you quoted the times that week and then you're seeing them. I can't I can't see that as being negative at all, you know, in terms of the client be thinking, wow, that's really cool. Especially when you're comparing yourself to another broker, they're looking at someone else who's not being quoted. Yeah, it's that old um that old sort of story of credibility, really. But I think um, you know, even on LinkedIn as well, these things like the way people put their job titles and things can can be impactful. And I think we went to a session together where the guy was saying, you know, clients would literally look at you know, all the people will call themselves financial planners, and if everyone's called a financial planner, how do you distinguish between them? And someone might put a charred financial planner, and the client would immediately think, Well, they must be better then. Yeah. So I think there's there's definitely uh a benefit to being the one they go to, yeah. The the press, especially.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah, it's quite it. I sometimes when clients sort of return to me after after their fix rates and things, often they'll say, Oh Chris, I've loved what you've been saying in the press. And you don't realise, but clients follow it. So if you do get the opportunity to to comment in the press, it's really good. I had once a client approach an introducer of mine. Um, well, they came from that introducer. I spoke to them and and everything, and then um the introducer forwarded me an email from the client that said, 'Did you know your mortgage broker's famous?' And because she um had read about me in the FT a few times, and uh yeah, I found that quite funny because I'm by no means famous, but uh it's nice to have that opinion out there sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

I think you gotta take it. Being a famous person in mortgages, that's maybe that should be my LinkedIn title, actually. Yeah, maybe yeah, that'll stand out, won't it? Um okay. So going back to your business, uh, we've got uh you, Donnie, and Mike. Yes. And making up the three the three amigos to start with MSP. Um funny enough, one of our WhatsApp chats was the three amigo too. Well, uh obviously all very experienced and come from different uh you know levels of background and so on, different ages as well. Yeah. Um obviously got you know you can cover a lot of clients together.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

How have you found it that moving into a business together? What you know, from being colleagues to now being business owners? Brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Absolutely loving it so far. We are a really good team who we we each bring a different skill set to the table. So um because of different types of cases, different roles that we've each had in the past, um it it's been fantastic working with with Donny and Mike. Yeah and I can only see it growing over time as well, and and as we take on uh staff and and grow the business, we want to build a fantastic culture of quite frankly, just nice people and hard workers. Yeah. Because if you're if you're nice in your hard work, you're nine-tenths of the way there in any job, really. And um yeah, it's it's been fantastic so far. The wealth of knowledge in in the room with us three is fantastic, and we want to sort of utilize that to to grow the business further and pass that knowledge on to other people as well.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

And for potential clients listening in today, what's uh what sort of what's your main USP for a client coming to see you?

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Yeah, it's working in f in complex circumstances, and I know a lot of brokers will say that, but it's uh using our lender relationships to do cases that other brokers can't, um, especially if there's a lot of wealth in the background, which is really where we start to excel. Often people don't need mortgages, but but they want mortgages. Yeah. So I've had clients with tens of millions in the bank where they want to borrow as much as possible because they don't want to withdraw that from a company and have a have a tax liability of 40% or so. Sure. They they might want to uh I mean in previous years they might not want to bring money into the UK when the domicile rules were different. Okay. There's all sorts of reasons to get debt, even if you don't necessarily need it, because mortgages are comparatively cheap to taxes and and to a lot of other lines of finance that people get.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Um just talking about sort of your operational change now as well, being a business owner, what's the one thing you've done that's really made a difference in your your new business?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

I think we're just we're only four months in, so we're we're really trying to get off the ground. We we're doing fantastically well so far. We're ahead. Oh, yeah, really well. You've seen the figures there. Um it's uh pretty good. Yeah, we're we're we're we're hitting the ground running, we're ahead of where we scheduled ourselves to be. It's nice that we hadn't expected to pay ourselves for the first six months and we've already been able to pay ourselves several times over. Brilliant. Um it's it it's because of the low barriers to entry in in the industry using networks like yourself to um to capitalise on that. But um but yeah, we're just learning everything. Every day we're trying to change our processes so that we're integrating protection conversations in from day one. Okay. Um which where in the past we kind of just referred it off to somebody that did protection. Sure. And um and really spending a lot of time with clients, adding value by really educating clients. Yeah. And then it's really about what the future holds, how we can integrate things like AI into our processes to help well, help help the client journey be better, um, but also reduce admin load on our side, things like that. Spend more time giving advice. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. And I I think advice is is the main thing because there's so many brokerages out there that that effectively are just sourcing systems themselves. Basically. And and they they don't I I mean I had a an example last week where a client had been had forwarded me what they'd been sent by another broker, and they were like two-year fix, five-year fix. It was it was a broker they originally did the mortgage with, and they didn't even speak to the client when quoting them for this next set of terms. So then I got on the phone to them and I I sort of said, look, what are your intentions, what are your plans over the next few years? And and just went into a full fat find with them, and they were looking to move in the next 12 months. So if they locked into a five year fix, and they were looking to do a major upgrade when they moved as well. Yeah. So looking into a five-year fixed just is is nonsensical. Yeah. And it's really that that is not advice. That is taking an execution from a client and um and and doing it for them.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Excellent. We're really happy that you with New Leaf. And there's there's the the tag line of this podcast, Chris, is um turning a new leaf, turning over new leaf in financial advice. So we're asking every guest uh as part of the podcast is what's the one new leaf you're turning over in your business right now?

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Well, I think we have turned the leaf by opening the business is is definitely what's a good answer, yeah. But focusing on protection, focusing how we can scale the company and uh we can we can build this into something really exciting for the future. Um and yeah, just just growing from here and obviously being able to do things like open up a financial uh financial planning arm or wealth advice arm, things like that to uh really grow the business in a lot of different directions.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Yeah, brilliant. Uh for clients listening in and people listening in, where can they find out more about your business?

SPEAKER_00 24:25

You can Google us. So uh our website's mspfinancial.co.uk. Uh we're on LinkedIn as a company, as individuals, um, and yeah, we're happy to happy to chat to anyone. Thanks for coming on the podcast today, Chris. Thanks for having me.