Much of the programme was spent painfully revisiting the undercover investigations carried out in the first programme. This time though, several brokers were given the chance to go on the record. Mortgage Talk’s operations director (and MI contributor) Andy Frankish estimated the volume of self-cert mortgages to be as high as 30 per cent of the market.
Commenting on his claims in the programme, Frankish said: “The figures I quoted on the BBC programme were taken from Mortgage Talk’s own statistics compiled between October and mid-January. They depend entirely on whether self-cert is defined as including fast-track.”
The programme used Mortgage Talk’s figures to question the FSA’s estimate in a recent report that self-cert mortgages only accounted for 6 per cent of the market.
All bar one of the lenders mentioned in the programme, including the entire HBOS stable, refused to talk to the programme, leaving the CML’s Michael Coogan to represent them. He denied the programme’s allegation of widespread fraud.
The only lender to br eak ranks and appear on the programme was the Portman Building Society. Mathew Wyles, group development director at the Portman, claimed that many of the Portman’s more aggressive competitors could have significant amounts of mis-sold self-cert mortgages on their books.
Julian Wells, head of marketing at Mortgages plc, said: “We are glad to see the FSA have looked into this and delivered a positive report. But the BBC programme will no doubt lead to more heated debate in the industry.”
