In the undercover investigation mortgage advisors came under fire with only three out of 39 advisers giving ‘acceptable advice’.
Seven researchers posing as first-time buyers visited 39 banks, building societies and estate agents between September 2003 and January 2004.
According to the investigation seven advisers didn’t mention the current MCCB code and 14 gave misleading information about it. In addition 21 advisers failed to properly explain the ways to re-pay a mortgage and 23 didn’t clarify the different deals available.
Malcolm Coles, editor of Which?, said: “Some of the bad advice we received was down to inexperience and poor training, or advisers being more concerned about selling protection insurance that pays big commissions than giving mortgage advice. Regulation won’t solve these problems though it should mean advisers become more accountable.”
Chris Cummings director of AMI, said: “Which? normally produce high quality research however this has fallen well short of the usual standard with too much reliance on branch-based staff and estate agents. It crucially failed to clarify the correct status of different advisers.”
Rob Clifford, managing director at Mortgageforce, said: “It’s disappointing but hardly surprising given the size of the sector and scope for poor advice. Every firm has a duty to put in place a training and competence scheme but even if a firm has excellent methods of training in place their monitoring systems may be lacking.”
