The research also revealed that the majority of advisers believed existing documentation would be sufficient to prove they were embedding TCF into work practices.
Justine Tomlinson, marketing director at Mortgage Next, said: “The results from our survey are concerning. The majority of brokers could not tell us the deadline for reaching the implementation stage and most felt that existing documentation would provide sufficient evidence that they have an effective TCF strategy in place.
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“However, we cannot lay the blame for this with small firms. The FSA has created a massive communications gap, choosing to directly communicate key messages to larger firms while expecting small firms with limited resources to update themselves. More than ever the FSA needs to support networks and service providers who are well placed to bridge this gap.”
Rachel Loynes, adviser at Carterbar Ltd, agreed: “We are a DA company and although we don’t use it as a network, we use Simply Biz, which helps us with our compliance. We find it easier than going to the FSA, whose departments are hard to get through to and even then do not always agree with each other. When it comes to compliance, you need to know exactly where you stand.”
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