What about the word ‘action’ taken in the Good Practice document of 26 January 4.6 under ‘Future customers’ and paragraph 1.4 in the principle of not treating customers fairly, when it ought to know better. The FSA has shown that when it comes to the big boys, it is just a paper tiger and has lost friends who wish it well, but have lost faith in it. How can it continue with ‘Treating Customers Fairly’ (TCF) when it has sent out all the wrong messages?
The lenders who have clearly not taken the FSA’s guidance seriously and either retained their excessive exit fees or tried to hoodwink the public in changing the name of the administration fee, should now incur the wrath of the market. I call on our trade association, the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI), to summon a council of war, consisting of a representative section of intermediaries to plan how we can, by our pressure, bring these errant lenders into line for the benefit of the public and ensuring they are treated fairly. By this, I mean that either their charge is at the true administrative costs – which is estimated by Defaqto to be a market average of around £35 – or they abandon exit fees altogether.
Clearly intermediaries have a collective power in the supply of business to lenders in the order of 70-80 per cent of their business. Collectively, intermediaries have power and the non-supply of business to the offending lenders would soon see them get the message
Regards
Danny Lovey
The Mortgage Practitioner
