The article reported that post-regulation application procedures took up a total of an hour and 34 “mind-numbing minutes’ compared to a pre-regulation 35 minutes.
The procedures were tested at the Skipton Building Society when it took the writer of the article through two dummy interviews for a mortgage
Robin Gordon-Walker, spokesperson for the FSA, said that the time taken by Skipton was not an exact reflection of the time taken by all lenders and customers. He said: “The amount of time taken for a quote depends on what kind of deal a customer wants, the lenders interpretation of the rules, or how long a customer feels that they need to spend with an adviser. It is a huge commitment; why shouldn’t people want to take this amount of time.”
Michelle Vosper, public relations manager at the CML, said: “The FSA rules have been implemented to protect consumers. It is important that they are getting full explanations and understanding of procedures. The mortgage decision-making process is a very important one; the time involved must be interpreted accordingly.”
Alison Hoyland, communications manager at the FOS, commented that the application process may initially take longer because of firms interpretation of the FSA regulation but firms could harldly be blamed for ensuring that rules were followed to the letter.
She said: “Ensuring compliance and an audit trail is an important area for the protection of both the firm and the consumer. This could be the single biggest financial commitment that most people will make, taking this into account, how can you put a price on the time involved.”
