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Mortgage lenders who innovate and find new ways to do things get our backing.

The vast majority of lenders use centralised systems to make decisions about who they should lend to and how much they can lend, so the computer says yes or no.

There are a few lenders who genuinely look at each case and try to find better ways to make a decision. A good example is The Mort­gage Works (TMW), the specialist mortgage division of the Portman building society.

It employs underwriters who actually look at mortgage cases to find ways of doing them rather than saying no. Over the past few months TMW has relaxed its buy to let and other criteria to reflect market conditions.

· Jonathan Cornell is Technical director, Hamptons, tel: 020-7220-1000