In our marketplace, timing is everything. Get that timing wrong, and the chances of achieving the outcome clients (and you) want can be seriously compromised.
But there’s also a wider issue here in terms of timing because, in a sector where you are so reliant on other stakeholders within the process, if others ‘get it wrong’ in terms of their timings then, not only will you suffer but so will the client.
Hence, why there has been some serious noise emanating from advisers about the time they are being provided with – or not, as the case might be – with regards to the pulling of products and rates, as lenders attempt to react to the various shifts and changes the market is subject to currently.
Now, I have some sympathy for lenders here because speed can appear to be of the essence, especially if the market moves quickly and you look like you are going to be ‘last lender standing’, with all that entails in terms of receiving business and having to maintain service levels when processing it.
No lender wants to be in a ‘close the doors’ position – we will all be aware of lenders in the not-so-distant past forced down that route, and generally it didn’t end up well.
However, what might be deemed a timely period of notice to give to advisers when it comes to pulling rates and products, especially for cases that might already have been offered on, or indeed be post-valuation, or indeed have exchanged?
I throw those last couple in because you’ll no doubt be aware that this is happening and it seems wholly against the grain of good outcomes and treating customers fairly, or indeed anything within the Consumer Duty.
Clients who have exchanged are being told they can no longer complete on their original mortgage offer, that they are to choose from another, far more-costly rate alternative with larger fees and, clearly for the adviser, that is not going to be a serious recommendation when there are clearly better, cheaper options on the market for them.
Again, we have to ask the question, is that a timely way to treat customers? Advisers will probably argue they have come to expect lenders pulling products within a very short space of time, and that on the whole, they can roll with these particular punches.
But, when you have agreed a product, secured an offer/valuation and everything else to move that case forward and past exchange, to find your client being told that this is being withdrawn, then we really have to think it’s the thin end of the wedge.
In other areas too, the need for a much greater ‘heads up’ period seems to be overlooked. The FCA’s recent fees consultation lasted five weeks. Is this enough time for the industry and all stakeholders to get their heads around the suggested changes and provide a forcible and cogent counter to what is being proposed?
Undoubtedly not. And such a short period breathes more life into the argument that a regulatory consultation paper is nothing of the kind. It is the final rules or costs or fees in all but name with the expectation that any responses will be read, but not acted upon.
Which, I’m afraid, makes an ever-decreasing circle whereby those who would normally respond vigorously feel they don’t have the time to put their ducks in a row, or that they should not spend the time doing this in the first place, because the response will be ignored anyway.
It’s a slippery slope and stems from a belief that less time gives less chance of those impacted being ‘difficult’. But what it actually does is breed contempt and a dis-satisfaction with the way the action has been taken, and the lack of time provided to do anything meaningful about it.
So, while I fully understand it might feel like such decisions need to be taken immediately with limited time for all those impacted to get their heads around it, let alone inform the client/weigh up the cost/present an alternative, we absolutely need this built into our market or we simply end up chasing our tails, only to deliver increasingly poor outcomes.
That should not be a result that anyone wants; we are not asking stakeholders to give the industry, specifically advisory firms, all the time in the world, but certainly more than appears to be the norm at present.
Bob Hunt is chief executive of Paradigm Mortgage Services
