Hope Capital Property Finance has announced the introduction of a new pre-application team, following a restructure of its sales department earlier in the year.
The pre-application team is led by James McDonough, who rejoins the business after a three-year absence. James brings more than 12 years of experience across both regulated and unregulated lending, with extensive expertise in underwriting operations.
Supporting James are pre-application specialists Michael Trafford, Joe Jacques and Dyl Roscoe. Michael joined Hope Capital in 2022 and has transitioned into the new team from his previous role as sales specialist. Joe and Dyl are both new additions to the business. Joe joins from Santander, where he specialised in fraud detection and financial crime prevention, while Dyl joins from Metro Bank, where she worked as a lending specialist.
The new pre-application team will ensure that applications passed on by Hope Capital's sales specialists are expertly packaged and prepared before being transferred to the underwriting team.
The pre-application team will acknowledge enquiries within one business hour and provide updates at every key milestone, complete initial due diligence within a five-hour SLA, taking enquiries through to application across all deal types, and arrange valuation and legal quotes prior to underwriting for time-sensitive applications.
They will then package and submit fully completed cases within 24 business hours of receiving all required documentation, provide on-site support to both the sales and underwriting teams, and operate a dedicated broker support line to handle any post-submission queries.
James McDonough, pre-application lead, commented: "I'm thrilled to rejoin Hope Capital Property Finance, especially to lead this new team. The pre-application stage is a crucial part of the specialist lending journey because speed is everything. A more complete, well-packaged application enables a faster underwriting process, helping us deliver quicker outcomes for brokers and borrowers. I'm looking forward to leading the team as we continue to enhance the service we provide."
Kim Parker, director of lending operations and commercial strategy, added: "The launch of our new pre-application team marks another important step in strengthening our proposition for brokers and borrowers. Even within its first few weeks, the team has already made a positive impact on both efficiency and service delivery. We know that speed is critical in bridging finance, which is why we are continually investing in improvements that streamline our processes and help our customers complete transactions more quickly."
