Pre-settlement lender Ask Funding has trimmed its product range in the face of the burdens imposed by the National Credit Act and rising impairments, the result of a weaker residential property market.Yesterday, the company released the results of a strategic review. It will maintain its injury and disbursement funding lines (lending to people making personal injury and other legal claims) but has stopped offering matrimonial and inheritance funding.Ask's chief executive, Russell Templeton, said injury and disbursement funding was non-recourse. If borrowers do not succeed in court they don't have to pay back their loans. But the consumer protection provisions of the Credit Act come into play in cases of matrimonial and inheritance funding. Templeton said: "Under the new law if someone has to sell their home to pay a loan it is deemed hardship, and the onus of proof is on us to prove it is not hardship."Our legal advice is that we would have to do one-on-one interviews with each borrower to assess their suitability for our finance. Our loans are distributed by solicitors all over the country."That cost would be huge. The solicitors can do part of that assessment, but they don't want to be our credit representatives."The company reported a 14 per cent increase in loan impairments in its June 2010 financial statement. Declining valuations in the property sector were another factor in the company's decision to exit matrimonial and inheritance funding.At December 31, Ask's gross loan book was worth A$56.4 million, with 31 per cent in disbursement funding, 33 per cent in personal injury funding, 33 per cent in matrimonial and three per cent in inheritance funding.