We round up the most thought-provoking or unmissable reader comments posted after stories and letters sent straight through to the editor.
Remember, we pick the best reader comment each week, so scroll down to the bottom to find out if your comment was our top pick last week.
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Fred the Shred revealed – his rage over ‘rogue biscuits’
Mortgage Solutions | 25 Aug 2011 | 11:34
IFAonline
I had first hand experience of Fred at the Clydesdale bank in London before he went to RBS and he regularly used to tear strips off people just because he could. He seemed to enjoy it because it got results for a while. Maybe he should join the X Factor as a judge?
Paul Burnside
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FSA to issue first ‘health alert’ product warning soon
Mortgage Solutions | 31 Aug 2011 | 08:13
IFAonline
The financial services industry’s reputation has suffered greatly through the introduction of some inappropriate products over the last 30 years and they keep coming.
It’s late, but better late than never that all products are scrutinized before introduction, rather than marketed indiscriminately and sold by targeted sales teams to all and sundry. Hopefully, the FSA staff will be on the ball and products with shortcomings will either not get off the drawing board from the providers or, if they do, will be returned to sender by the FSA.
Richard D
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Why fee-charging conveyancing panels are the future
Mortgage Solutions | 30 Aug 2011 | 15:29
Eddie Goldsmith
Is it really in the wider public interest for Santander to charge law firms to be on their panel? Banks are in business to sell mortgages. They require legal advice and pass 100% of the cost of that on to the borrower.
But their enormous market share means that they are powerful enough to say that recouping 100% is not enough so they want to charge the solicitors for the privilege of being the providers of that advice. Today, there’s a fee for checking on the firm’s credentials, but what next?
There is a significant risk that this will open the door to either Santander or other banks charging a referral fee type of payment from the solicitor on every mortgage. They may not be planning that now but it is the logical next step.
Ultimately, conveyancing services will only be available from a handful of very large providers, many of them doubtless the lenders themselves and the protection of clients will be diminished.
Frank Maher
Until we see a significant change to legislation, the conveyancing market will remain fragmented in terms of quality of service, cost and market share. Considering the consequences for homeowners on the receiving end of negligent conveyancing, this is an industry in dire need of tighter regulation.
Anonymous
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FSA: Broker mortgage sales fall below 50% market share
Mortgage Solutions | 31 Aug 2011 | 12:25
Kay McLellan
Well, the FSA strategy of removing advice and choice from the grasp of the general public is an unqualified success. The banks and other lenders can ‘wipe the eye’ of the public with impunity and the blessing of the FSA.
Hearty congratulations to the slow but insidious removal of all types of advice which will allow the banks to put their snouts even deeper into the trough.
Mike
This article flies in the face of similar research conducted by Kensington. It showed that more people than ever are taking independent mortgage advice and therefore perhaps those lenders not looking after the intermediary market need to look ahead to when their staff can’t cope, provide a service or start getting complaints. Oh wait, that’s already the case!
Michael Rogerson
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Protection ‘mis-selling’ – here we go again
Mortgage Solutions | 31 Aug 2011 | 16:49
Owain Thomas
What a surprise. Apparently the banks are “guilty” again. Having spent 14 years of my life in retail banking, I’m not surprised. Why can’t the FSA see where the problem is and deal with it rather than regulating the truly independent sector out of the market place?
John Morgan
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Should mortgage protection be compulsory?
Mortgage Solutions | 31 Aug 2011 | 12:39
Mortgage Solutions
Here we go again. We appear to be going around in circles and I expect the next talking point will be the re-introduction by the mortgage lenders of the assignment of policies to cover interest-only mortgages.
Let’s hope it doesn’t go down the previous route of the abuses of the 1980s when the best deals were only available on an interest-only basis with an endowment policy because the lender’s sales force got a commission kick-back from the life company.
John Morgan
I recall a time, not so long ago, when we were required by the regulator to state why we were NOT offering PPI insurance to the client. We used to get clients to sign this saying they had been offered PPI but didn’t want to take it up. We all know that the regulator has now decided PPI is generally, but not always, bad news.
Compulsory insurance is BAD news unless it is an obvious requirement such as motor or buildings insurance. Too many people do not need this cover and therefore a one size fits all is not appropriate.
Nick
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SHIP needs a “strong, cleverly marketed message” – the industry wishlist
Mortgage Solutions | 01 Sep 2011 | 12:14
Simret Samra
Oh dear. Perhaps it’s time to sink this rudderless SHIP. Without doubt equity release is in the doldrums and the outlook is looking bleak. What the market needs is innovative thinking.
Currently, I advise about 50% of my equity release referrals not to go down this road as there is no pecuniary advantage and would leave them financially weaker.
What the market needs is new providers with innovative products, but I do not believe this will happen, and we have to work with what is currently available. Yes, equity release has a bad press and, with the interest rates charged, you can understand why.
I believe the product has a place in the market and will continue to recommend only when it is advantageous to do so.
Final industry plea – most of my clients simply want to increase their monthly income, and there is no provider within SHIP that permits this without some form of lump sum borrowing or additional criteria.
HW
I can only echo much of what HW has written. The plans are usurious, interest rates are far too high and on reversion plans the percentage offered against value is too slight. The remuneration structure, particularly after 2012, needs reviewing as do much of the ‘hidden’ charges and hand-outs.
Firms offering these plans do themselves no favours and are generally regarded as rip-off merchants once the figures are analysed in detail. No wonder so many have withdrawn from the market.
Publicity currently surrounding these products prey on the most vulnerable and desperate and, if they do proceed, the deal they end up with can, in all the circumstances that I have come across, hardly be called advantageous (to them). There ought to be two winners from a proposition such as this – the provider and the client.
Unfortunately there are two winners at present – the provider and the intermediary who is generally vastly over compensated. The ambiance, marketing and general demeanor of these products don’t reflect well on those promulgating them. This needs to change!
Harry Katz
01 Sep 2011 | 15:21
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US ‘to sue’ dozen banks over housing bubble mortgages
Mortgage Solutions | 02 Sep 2011 | 09:39
IFAonline
This is all for the benefit of the up and coming elections. Professional investors are not naïve, they fully understood the risks but at the time the gains were just too much for them not to be a part of it, so greed overcame caution. Who really suffered from this?
It wasn’t the banks because they’re still making bonuses the size of small countries, investment companies are making money in down markets as well as bull markets, the government still receives its wage packet whatever the market conditions, so its the rest of us that pick up the tab.
The system must change, but there is little incentive when banks, the government and investment companies are one big family.
David William
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This week’s star comment comes from Mervyn who gives us his thoughts on the FSA’s latest data, showing the proportion of intermediated sales in the mortgage market falling to 47% in Q1 2011:
FSA: Broker mortgage sales fall below 50% market share
Mortgage Solutions | 31 Aug 2011 | 12:25
Kay McLellan
I am not surprised to see the reaction attributed to the FSA, it illustrates the paucity of the thinking process and a clear pointer to the fact that recorded sales data cannot provide the full picture of the professional adviser market.
In the last business year, we completed only 12 mortgages, because as independent financial advisers we advised the bulk of our clients not to remortgage but to stick with their current lenders, as most were on lifetime trackers and other low cost variable rate deals. To have advised otherwise would have been against our clients’ best interests.
I would expect that the same process and resulting advice would be provided by other independent advisers.
This form of professional independent advice is not recorded, to my knowledge, in any data available to the FSA, so by default there has to be an error in the data and the assumptions drawn from that that advice is unimportant.
Mervyn
31 Aug 2011 | 14:44
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Thank you for all your comments
From the Mortgage Solutions team
