S4E30 - Season 3 Episode 30 - How does digital accessibility affect the mortgage process?

And, you know, I guess in the mortgage sense as well, there's just so many options and every bank does it differently.

The forms are different.

So I can imagine for like, you know, a visually impaired person, you know, trying to get um you know just look trying to review stuff um it could be all different formats and i'm not sure whether the forms uh can be read by your software easily so and you are filling up the forms right you know every bank is different what is required is different um that's why you come to mortgage brokers by us but you know it is definitely not not easy

Louise, when you're saying that, when you sign a mortgage, it's a legal document, right?

Yes, correct.

Now, you've said every bank's different, every form is different.

Yeah.

And like someone with dyslexia or acquired brain injury or colour blindness, it doesn't really matter what the disability is.

They're going to struggle with those forms.

And it's not even... just people with disability is it it's everyone struggles with those forms oh yes

even you know these are like legal documents i mean the banks Yeah, I mean, it is complicated and it's probably drafted in such a way that, you know, even for normal people to understand is difficult enough.

But obviously, because you want to borrow money from a bank, you have to either understand it yourself.

I mean, as a broker, I do go through the documents with a client, but it's still a legal document.

And if you need to get like legal advice online, And you said from a language perspective, if English is not your first language, then it's even harder, isn't it? So you need an interpreter.

And legally, it's not just your family member, but you need to get an interpreter that's authorized to actually explain to you all the legal terms or a lawyer who is trained to be able to explain to you in the language that you prefer.

And that was going to be my question.

How legal is it signing those documents? Because you're meant to, I know from past experience signing mortgage documents, you're saying, you're stating that you understand those documents.

But we both know and we've talked about how different people read things differently.

It can be the same words, but depending on where you put the stop, You know, where you pause, you take a breath, it changes the meaning, even the way the intonation that you use changes it, doesn't it? So how can a person say that they actually understand the documents when they can't read the documents?

Yeah, I mean, I don't think that's a straightforward answer.

You know, like you've mentioned, we all know it's a legal document.

But, you know, how much do we understand our obligations, you know, when it comes to signing that as a legal document? Honestly, it's questionable from a practical perspective.

So, you know, if you really want to understand, then, you know, you really need to get An interpreter to explain to you the whole document and obviously the interpreter has to be financially trained as well.

So, you know, there are many hurdles.

I mean, again, like practically most of the time it will be a family member