Using an IFA

Mortgageman

Wow, for a thread that was started today, there is very little left to say as the responses have been excellent

You can say that again!

A couple of things to raise:

may not be whole of market

and sometimes someone who can under FSA guidelines say they are whole of market, actual work of a panel of lenders that are "representative of the industry" - it's open to depbate, but in extreme cases this could be as few as 5/6 lenders.

A lot of these mortgage advisors are going to go out of business once the FSA are involved and the sooner the better.

Agree. But also a lot of the IFA's that provide wholly innaccurate mortgage advice will nolonger be able to do so with such flippancy

I wonder if it comes down to size

I think it possibly does.

Most of the shoddy mortgage advisers are sole practioners - they just couldn't get away with what they do in a larger brokerage. I've spoken to mortgage advisers at most of the top brokers / IFA's and generally they are pretty good - there is allways somethign that I think they could do better, but there is never the kind of issues like the examples in your posts.

However, there are a load of good "little" guys out there - as both DD and Payless prove time and time again.

The key, I think, really is shopping around - both on the mortgage and the life assurance.

Its a shame if the industry was not able to look after itself, but yes FSA regulation should certainly make things a better place for consumers , albeit the extra paperwork and costs to firms (particularly small firms, such as you and I) will have an initial impact , and of course one way or another this will impact on consumer costs

It is a shame, and I appreciate how difficult it must be for the smaller advisers.

I'm also concerned on the effect it is going to have on the smaller lenders - and whether it will create a virtual monopoly due to the cost of regulation.