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Shepherd Direct is the overarching company name for a group of businesses that have evolved to become a unique independently owned organisation that serves the property and mortgage industry.
Shepherd Surveyors
The owners of Direct Valuation developed a link with the partners of J & E Shepherd, one of Scotland’s largest and most established firms of Chartered Surveyors. J & E Shepherd became the main panel surveying business North of the border for valuation work passed through from Direct Valuations.
As the relationship developed between Direct Valuations and J & E Shepherd the owners of the two businesses agreed to launch a joint venture to provide a surveying practice across England and Wales supported by J & E Shepherd in Scotland.
Shepherd Surveyors - England and Wales has its Head Office in Chilwell, Nottingham and together with our Surveying practice in Scotland, we employ over 150 Chartered Surveyors across the UK. We are therefore able to provide a National Surveying Solution to our lender and mortgage intermediary clients. 
With a heritage of over 125 years, J & E Shepherd provides an immense amount of experience and support to our National Surveying and Panel Management business. One of the main differences over our competitors is that we are an independently owned organisation in which our owners and directors are involved on a daily basis. We believe this provides a unique valuation and surveying proposition that sets us apart from the competition.
We are looking forward to meeting and working with many more lender and mortgage intermediary clients. A visit to our offices at Chilwell will provide any potential new client with an immediate feel of how our business operates and how it has developed over the years into what it is today. Meeting members of our management and operations team as well as our surveyors will help to grow your understanding of why we are all proud to be involved with this business.
Direct Valuations
We are proud to have been the first Valuation Panel Management business in the UK. We started in 1989 when the project team who launched First Direct identified there was a necessity to arrange mortgage valuations across the country.
One of the original members of the First Direct project team was Paul Gratton, who later in his banking career launched and was the Chief Executive of Egg. Paul is now the Executive Chairman of Shepherd Direct and is 
based at our Nottingham Head Office.
Over the 20 years Direct Valuations has been operating, we have been the valuation panel manager for many lenders including HSBC, Direct Line, Virgin One, Standard Life Bank, Yorkshire & Clydesdale Banks and many more. With our background and experience of carrying volume valuation panel management, we are currently talking to many lenders across the UK about working with them in the future.
To be able to fully appreciate the slickness and effectiveness of how we act as a panel manager for the many lenders we are involved with, we would invite any lender or mortgage intermediary to visit our operation in Chilwell, Nottingham – just off junction 25 of the M1 and see for themselves how our processes enable us to deliver a high level of service to our existing clients.
We are an independently owned agile business, which is able to increase capacity to suit whatever are the current requirements of the valuation market place.
As well as panel managing residential and commercial valuations, we now have a panel in place to be able to arrange Energy Performance Certificates (EPC’s) on both residential and commercial properties across the UK.
MoneyQuest
The latest expansion of the group was the outright purchase in 2008 of moneyQuest, which is one of the largest on-line and telephone mortgage broking operations in the U.K. Operating from Glasgow, moneyQuest provides a simple, hassle free service offering jargon free advice and access to the whole of the UK mortgage market.
moneyQuest has been operating in the mortgage broking industry for 20 years and when we emerge from the current difficult times in the mortgage world we look forward to growing the levels of business we introduce to the lenders we work with. 
Our established mortgage broking service operates 7 days a week and is a winner of the mortgage strategist broker of the year award.
We are an appointed representative of Legal and General and are therefore able to market and introduce their world wide brand and products to the clients we deal with - be it when they are purchasing a new property or remortgaging between lenders. We do not charge a broker fee for providing advice about life and critical illness cover.
Our ownership and involvement in the mortgage broking world, through moneyQuest, means we are in a position to offer a one stop shop to the lending industry as through the businesses within Shepherd Direct we are able to carry out their mortgage valuations as well as sell their mortgage products.
We hope this introduction provides lenders and mortgage intermediaries with an insight as to how Shepherd Direct is able to provide ‘Best of Breed’ support to the property and mortgage industry. If you navigate around our website you will be introduced to the people who are involved with running Shepherd Direct and learn more about the Surveying, Valuation Panel. Management and Mortgage Broking subsidiaries of our business.