Consumers "champion" Which? has conducted research and found that only 3 out of 39 mortgage advisers gave acceptable advise in connection with some undercover mortgage reporting. They said that many were high street brand names such as Abbey, Halifax, HSBC etc and that most advisers gave below par advice and many even forgot entirely to mention the voluntary Mortgage Code Compliance Board (MCCB) code of practice.
Our view:
Old hat! Which are chasing headlines with this one. It is common knowledge that many high street finance houses do not "give a monkey's" about the consumers. On top of this the MCCB voluntary code will no longer exist with effect 31 October. The Financial Services Authority takes over as a true regulator of Mortgage business, much in the same way it does for pensions and investments, and mortgage brokers will need help to cope with it. We sometimes wonder whether Which? does more damage than good. Destroying the public confidence is not helping Britain but likewise we believe that they have a public interest in shaming poor practice. Perhaps, it would be nice to see some positive results from financial advisers also. Most of us (independent financial advisers that is) are actually quite decent!