Ian Crampton, sales manager at Ferndown Limited, has accused lenders of hiding behind the FSA.
He contacted Mortgage Introducer to express frustration over what he believes are guarded lender responses to seemingly straightforward requests.
He cited a story highlighted in the 2 April 2005 issue of MI – News ‘Nationwide KFI failed to show fee’. The case in question occurred when the Nationwide Building Society issued a KFI, which failed to disclose the broker fee – it took three weeks to correct the problem.
A Nationwide spokeswoman described the case as “a very rare situation” yet Crampton has received another offer since, again with no introducer fee detailed.
He said: “It appears lenders, not just Nationwide, are using the FSA as a way of buying themselves time to sort out service issues. Everytime I have a query it takes an eternity to sort out.
“Lenders are losing sight of simple decisions as they constantly seem to have one eye on the FSA. It’s understandable for compliance to be correct but it is getting increasingly frustrating for brokers.”
Paul Hearnden, managing director at My Mortgage Direct, agreed: “It seems common business practices are being forgotten as lenders are preoccupied with FSA interpretation.
“Some are failing to think and offer brokers clear and simple solutions for fear of FSA repercussions.”
Steve Brockman, director at A2B Mtg Co Ltd, disagreed. He said: “While we are still experiencing teething problems, lenders do seem to be getting their acts together when dealing with any issues that arise.
“I see the FSA ‘fear factor’ as having a positive not negative effect on the majority of lenders.”
