You can take another look at this week’s news and we’ll round up the most thought-provoking or unmissable comments posted after stories or letters sent straight through to the editor.
Remember, we will pick the best reader comment each week. Scroll down to the bottom to find out if your comment was our top pick from last week.
The truth about conveyancing – what brokers should know
Mortgage Solutions | 25 Jul 2011 | 15:36
David Duckworth
Could not agree with David more. Everybody in the process, clients advisers, lenders and conveyancers need to have confidence in the competence of the conveyancer. I have been concerned by the reduced margins that have been accepted by too many of them over the last 5 to 6 years and the pressure such pricing policies have put on the performance of many well intentioned practices.
Alan Dring
25 Jul 2011 | 17:38
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Conveyancing sector “on verge of imploding”
Mortgage Solutions | 26 Jul 2011 | 08:53
Kay McLellan
It’s as important to know your solicitor as it is to know your client. In my experience, the highest cost conveyancer did not provide the best service, or the lowest priced the worst.
Over the past ten years I have forged a working partnership with three conveyancing firms and have made them aware of my expectations. I have enjoyed excellent service and the solicitors have benefitted from a steady stream of referrals.
HW
26 Jul 2011 | 10:56
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Three FOS bosses earn more than the PM
Mortgage Solutions | 26 Jul 2011 | 09:01
IFAonline
Will the PM act? I’m not certain. But he is the one person with power who can halt and then move us away from this worrying cannibalism, where private business makes a living on the one hand, only for a government agency, claim management company or lawyer, to redistribute it back to the public.
We need an incentive in business that engenders an enterprise culture, not a consumer culture. So, less litigation please and ultimately end enterprise cannibalism.
Chris Ridgeway
26 Jul 2011 | 15:16
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Why the UK will not become a nation of renters
Mortgage Solutions | 26 Jul 2011 | 15:29
Fionnuala Earley
The big hole in the assumption (which the figures and the dialectic contradict) is that it is based in the aspirations and opinions of 18 to 24 year olds. I’m not that ancient that I can’t recall that at that age I was going to retire at 50 and so did many of my contemporaries. Fat chance! It seems as we are heading for a more even balance and even then will be way ahead of our European neighbours in home ownership.
If you look to our European neighbours – whatever else you may criticise them for it is evident that they do enjoy a better standard of living and lifestyle. We have a live now pay later attitude and this is not conducive to the sort of saving and sacrifice necessary for home ownership. I disagree with the conclusions and the author’s article is not convincing.
Harry Katz
26 Jul 2011 | 17:13
I don’t think we actually disagree at all. I think it’s a matter of degree. I acknowledge that more people will rent, I just don’t think it will become the majority tenure, as it is in Germany for example.
Affordability is a hurdle and will buoy up rental, but as economic conditions improve so will affordability – HPE ratios aren’t so far from their long run average now. But that’s not to say that owner occupation will grow or even return to its past level.
As I say in the last paragraph, more people may stay in the rented sector, but preferences (and supply) would need to change drastically before we approached a 50% private rental rate like Germany. 70% of owner occupiers are 45 or older and more than half earn £30k or more, so even if all younger and lower income people stayed in rented accommodation, it would still take a long time to shift the balance.
Fionnuala Earley
27 Jul 2011 | 14:49
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Santander UK gross mortgage lending drops 21%
Mortgage Solutions | 27 Jul 2011 | 10:47
Simret Samra
Santander’s lending is down by closer to 90% with us. I have had three instances in the last two weeks where different members of staff and different departments had different ideas of what is and isn’t policy. If they don’t know their own criteria, how are we supposed to know? Why would we place our valued customers into the mortgage equivalent of a lottery?
Mike Parker
27 Jul 2011 | 13:07
It’s taking at least 21% longer to do initial administration, 21% longer to underwrite, ask for 21% more information and receive 21% less business because it’s better to go elsewhere than put the client or broker through the stress to save a blip or two. Yet they keep bombarding us with emails driving for new business. It should clear its feet first.
Das
27 Jul 2011 | 15:17
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Coogan: We never “defended the indefensible”
Mortgage Solutions | 27 Jul 2011 | 16:41
Vicky Hartley
Michael Coogan, and the CML continually defended the indefensible when all the irresponsible lending was going on. To say that he stopped defending them when it was all exposed is hardly something to be proud of now is it?
Why are the CML continuing to obstruct sensible changes like verifying income and only lending to people who can afford it? Michael, I think if you say things like this often enough you might convince yourself it’s true – but don’t expect other people to be fooled.
Keith Butler
28 Jul 2011 | 10:57
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This week’s star comment came from S Foden who gives his thoughts on whether negligence and fraud have left the conveying sector at the risk of exploding:
Conveyancing sector “on verge of imploding”
Mortgage Solutions | 26 Jul 2011 | 08:53
Kay McLellan
I agree with Duckworth when he comments that the downward pressure on legal fees results in a poor and often negligent service. This is our experience and our unfortunate clients that are often pressurized into dealing with these outfits by the mortgage lenders.
So what is the mortgage lenders response to this problem? It’s a simple one. Remove from their panels those solicitors whose volume of work is reduced by maintaining reasonable fees to ensure a quality of service. If as a result they suffer greater claims and greater mortgage fraud then they have only themselves to blame.
It’s likely that the insurance industry will soon wake up to this and be able to put forward compelling arguments to defeat claims made by mortgage lenders for their losses who insist on instructing volume providers without checking who will be undertaking the work and the charge for doing so.
We have only recently dealt with one such volume provider whose employee admitted that she had only been doing the job for two weeks, and as she didn’t know what she was doing, whether we could we help her out. My client’s were very grateful that she was acting as the significant defect in title that we had identified was taken on board by her client and the mortgage provider at no cost to our client.
S Foden
26 Jul 2011 | 09:52
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Thanks for all your comments,
From the Mortgage Solutions team
