Oh my, July! We may be mid-summer but the mortgage market is still waiting for things to heat up.
I won’t go into detail on the ever-rising rate market; the subject has been done to death and none of us has any control over it.
The lay of the land has been far from ideal for brokers for some time, particularly with products being withdrawn with little notice, as discussed in this month’s cover feature. But it’s not exactly a picnic for lenders either, as Andrew Montlake points out in Market Watch.
Your network or club should be able to help with any questions you have on the Consumer Duty
But let’s switch to cheerier topics. Consumer Duty, anyone?! The deadline is fast approaching at the end of this month, yet many in the market remain uncertain of to whom and to what the FCA’s new guidelines apply.
As TMA Club outlined in its overview of the most-asked questions on the new duty among its brokers, the guidelines apply to all regulated products except group policies (e.g. group life or group private medical policies). For example, it wouldn’t apply to an unregulated investment BTL mortgage, but it would apply to a consumer BTL mortgage.
Your network or club should be able to help with any questions you have on the Consumer Duty and the Ami has a lot more information on the topic too. But you’d better get your skates on if it’s something you’ve been putting off.
We can continue to publish this magazine only with the support of our readers and advertisers
On a different note, I wanted to take a minute to thank you all for continuing to support our print edition of Mortgage Strategy. The magazine has been in circulation for 22 years and, although it moved from weekly to monthly frequency in 2017, it has stood the test of time while many other consumer and trade titles have closed their print offering.
When I took on the role of editor seven years ago, one of the first things many people said to me was how much they enjoyed our physical magazine. We can continue to publish this only with the support of our readers and advertisers.
The lay of the land has been far from ideal for brokers for some time, but it’s not exactly a picnic for lenders either
We take our usual break from the magazine in August, but our website will have the latest updates and commentary.
Enjoy your summer, and see you back here in a stable mortgage market in September (testing out positive affirmations!).
This article featured in the July/August 2023 edition of MS.
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