This is according to packager Best Advice Mortgage Centre.
Latest figures from the Mortgage Code Compliance Board reveal that a staggering total of 37,204 advisers - a figure that represents almost 50 per cent of the mortgage intermediary population - remain unqualified. With only 80 days to go, those who fail or have not yet registered for CeMAP or MAQ will be unable to sit the exams before the deadline runs out at the end of the year.
“There is a lot less than two months to go to get these qualifications,” said Best Advice operations director Steve Holt. “Most advisers seem to have forgotten that weekends, public and Christmas holidays significantly reduce the number of working days left.”
The MCCB has confirmed that there will be no extension to the deadline. As a result, Holt warned that packagers will face fierce criticism for doing nothing to encourage introducers to take their exams in time.
“If nearly half the introducers in the UK are unqualified on 1 January 2003, which now looks inevitable, a large part of the blame will lie with packagers, who could, and should, do more. Brokers are, after all, the lifeblood of their business” he said.
