The referral agreement with Key is for both its employed and self-employed divisions and will remain in place when the authorisation is granted as the firm recognised that not all advisers will want to tackle the area.
Just Mortgages is targeting authorisation by the summer.
Mortgage Solutions understands the firm has been receiving significant numbers of enquiries and sees the sector as a big opportunity for future growth.
The advice firm said it has ambitions to provide its advisers with the permissions and education to provide equity release advice themselves in the future, once Openwork has granted the authorisation.
“At that point Just Mortgages’ advisers will be able to choose whether they wish to become qualified in this area in order to provide equity release advice themselves or if they prefer to continue to use the referral arrangement with Key Retirement,” it said.
“Those who wish to provide the advice themselves will be provided with full training.”
The advice firm completed £2.5bn worth of lending last year, an increase of 39 per cent on 2017 and as a result became Openwork’s top performing firm.
Growing importance of later-life lending
Just Mortgages and Spicerhaart group operations director John Phillips (pictured) said the firm recognised the growing importance of later-life lending with equity release forming a very important part of that.
“Not only can it help people when they need it most by providing solutions to challenging financial issues, but it can also be used for gifting and age-proofing their homes,” he said.
“Equity release is increasingly a vital part of the mortgage advice mix and that is why this relationship with leading equity release provider, Key Partnerships, is such a vital one.”
Head of Key Partnerships Jason Ruse said it was pleased to be working with Just Mortgages on the referral scheme.
“Increasingly, we are seeing more and more companies in the financial services arena recognise that being unable to help customers who are looking for later life lending support is putting them at a competitive disadvantage,” he said.
“While equity release is not right for everyone, it is hard to argue that it does not fill a very real need in today’s market and we look forward to helping Just Mortgages service increasing numbers of their customers.”
