You can take another look at the week’s news and we’ll round up the stand-out, most thought-provoking or unmissable comments posted after stories or sent straight through to the editor.
Comment any time on the Mortgage Solutions website and you could feature in next week’s Mortgage Mutterings.
……………………………………………
Just 6% plan to use equity release 01 November 2010
Less equity needed if endowments were fairer 01 November 2010
My policy with Friends Provident has matured today almost a third short of what was required. The Daily Telegraph highlighted some time ago that FP were one of the lowest performing and sadly these predictions have proved correct.
I think their rubbish returns on endowments are tantamount to daylight robbery, with the directors rubbing their hands in glee with being able to get away with so-called bonuses of 0.25%
Equity release might be needed a lot less if we hadn’t been shortchanged on the endowment front.
Sally Wainman
Comment two
A new equity release provider!?
A boulder sized hint by Friends Provident at their intentions? Let us hope so as a big name new entrant will give a significant jab in the arm for the equity release patient!
Interesting how F Prov’s survey findings conflict with that of LV’s Press Release 30 September 2010 “Home is Pension” is mantra for retiring generation Press Release’ in which they said “1.2 million HIPpies (‘Home is Pension’) may cash in their property to help fund retirement.”
Here we have F Prov saying that only 6% plan on taking equity release to provide retirement income, yet 77% intend staying in their own home whilst having little or no pension provision. How else are they going to afford to live?
Simon Chalk
………………………………………………………
Hot topic of the week – why don’t consumers like advisers? 29 October 2010
No-one is innocent
There are many reasons why some consumers – not all – do not like advisers. We have 1200 customers who obviously like us very much judging by the fact that we exist almost solely on their referrals with minimal advertising. The industry though is not blameless and we don’t have to rehearse all the reasons why; better just to make sure they don’t happen again. If I thought RDR as proposed the solution I would support it but it isn’t and therefore I don’t. Part of the reason why advisers are not universally liked is just down to the fact that some consumers, it has to be said, are just plain mean and narrow-minded. They view paying for advice as a zero-sum game whereby, if you are earning, they are losing. They don’t look at what they gain from it; they just look at your commission disclosure and view that as a ‘loss’ to them. A Leeds market trader I saw a few years back was typical. He came to us and on review we found he had an expensive old Allied Dunbar whole of life plan that was totally inappropriate to his needs. We quoted a replacement term assurance to cover his actual needs. It would have reduced his monthly spend plus put a lump sum in his pocket from the Dunbar surrender. All was going well until he saw the commission disclosure, at which point he decided not to proceed and cashed the Dunbar plan anyway. Result: No cover for him and no wage for me, despite me doing two meetings at his home, both starting at 9pm in the evening, during the course of which he kindly smoked over me to the extent that afterwards my lungs probably looked like the late Roy Castle’s. Our Lords and Masters at the FSA of course encourage such attitudes. One need only look at their ‘Money Made Clear’ brochures which stress ‘NO SELLING’. Selling, despite what Sants & Co may think, is no bad thing. Ask the recently bereaved widower to whose wife I sold a £400k LTA with which he now brings up his children or my former classmate to whom I sold Critical Illness Cover and who recently benefited from a payout for breast cancer. But still Sants et al decry us and, using our own money, propagandise against us. The recent idiocy about illustrating the total cost of life cover over the entire period of the policy will, of course, make matters worse. I wonder why they do that? I wonder why we let them?
Neil F Liversidge
…………………
CML denies desperation over MMR redraft demand 05 Nov 2010 | 10:40
Well done CML
Well done CML and it is nice to hear a regulatory body stand up and point out that the FSA has gone too far again! Self certs were never a problem until the BBC tried to create another misleading story and an increase in the deposit required will never stop people losing their jobs and being left exposed if their mortgage falls into arrears but at the same time the vast majority of those people will make good those arrears in time. You will always have those who manipulate the system to their advantage and whatever you did they will always fnd a way around it but they are not the people who want to own their own property and are willing to struggle to do so. We need 95 and 100% mortgages in the future, don’t stop them now or those to follow us will be penalised for something that was not their fault.
Richard
…………………………………
MS poll: Around 90% of readers agree with Housing Benefits cap
Mortgage Solutions | 04 Nov 2010 | 16:29
Big Deal?
Of course the ‘Cap’makes sense and all right thinking people will support it. Afterall it’s a bit like restricting your children to 5 ice creams a week instead of their customary 7. But this is very much just a side show that will effect very few claimants across the UK. The real story is the statutory 10% reduction for ‘job seekers’after a year and the move from LHA calculation based on 50% median to bottom 30% median. This will most likely lead to mounting Homeless required to be ‘temporarily’ housed (ad infinitum) at around 2 to 3 times the cost of paying their LHA. Yes the crazy system should never have been allowed to become the out of control monster but the solution required is both holistic and systemic involving the whole of society – er… something is needed like the a ‘Big Society’ to sort this. I wonder if any politicians have the imagination to come up with such a radical idea?
Peter
…………………………………….
Have a great weekend.
From the Mortgage Solutions team.
