However, pockets of the market are still functioning and equity release is one such exception.
Indeed, while our typical customer is over 70 and has been advised to self-isolate, the sector is looking at innovative approaches which mean they can still access the value tied up in their homes if they – for example – find that their income has dropped significantly due to the crisis.
As part of this, we have been faced with three big challenges – how to replicate the face-to-face advice aspect, how to ensure that independent legal advice is available and how to undertake robust valuations.
Financial and legal advice
While most firms offer some form of telephone-based advice, given the customer base and the desire to involve families, many prefer to incorporate at least some aspect of face-to-face advice.
However, since the pandemic was first announced, advice firms have worked hard to not only move to telephone-based advice but to look at other options that provide the personal touch and allow recording of interactions for compliance purposes.
Servicing older customers raises challenges and firms are committed to ensuring that the best possible and safest support is provided.
The Equity Release Council and its members have worked hard to tackle the other challenge around the provision of independent legal advice and recently announced amendments to its rules to facilitate this.
While customer safety remains the focus, Skype, Zoom and other digital solutions are being used.
Valuations
Finally, the issue around valuations has been managed with the introduction of semi-automated valuations.
These are a step above fully automated valuations and use rich data sets to augment local knowledge provided by Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ qualified surveyors.
Naturally, there are some restrictions with harder to value properties such as those with non-standard building materials being harder to place.
We were delighted to lead the charge on this and have had some extremely positive feedback from advisers who are working hard to support their clients.
Finally, with these three hurdles cleared and the expectation that the market will continue to function, the digital offerings of lenders are starting to come into their own.
Take the lessons
Being able to transact via portal with telephone-based support and online calculation tools has never been more important and those lenders who have invested in these options are likely to reap the rewards.
However, while the equity release industry will benefit from the enforced systems innovation pushed by this unprecedented world event, I suspect when the dust settles, we will be relieved to take these lessons and return to more normal trading conditions.
