FCA authorised: individual or just firm?

FataVerde

I want to buy my first home and a friend recommended his mortgage advisor. I have checked the FCA register and the individual seem not to be registered anymore "Status: No longer registered as an Appointed Representative." The firm he works for, however, comes up as FCA authorised. Is this enough or does the individual mortgage advisor need to be authorised or registered as appointed representative? Thanks!

dunstonh

 I have checked the FCA register and the individual seem not to be registered anymore "Status: No longer registered as an Appointed Representative."

Mortgage brokers/advisers are not individually registered with the FCA. Only investment class (IFAs for example) and those that hold a management control function (directors, owners, compliance etc).

What  " No longer registered as an Appointed Representative." means that once upon a time he was an investment class adviser working under network.    At some point he dropped down to mortgage and insurance only.

Being an IFA costs a lot more than being a mortgage adviser.  So, many FAs/IFAs who only did mortgages dropped their investment class permissions.   Also, in 2013, the qualifications for FAs/IFAs increased and a lot of older advisers decided not to sit the qualifications but drop the permissions and focus on insurance and mortgages or support roles for the investment class advisers (sometimes both).

For mortgages, only the firm needs to be regulated

FataVerde

Fantastic! Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this to me. The advisor has been very helpful and professional so far so I am glad there are no registration issues I need to worry about. Do you know if authorised firms automatically have access to "the whole market"? He said they did.

dunstonh

 Do you know if authorised firms automatically have access to "the whole market"? He said they did.

Not automatically but they have to declare their status.  However, check both insurance and mortgage as some can be whole of market on mortgages but single tied on insurance.

ACG

The term whole of market does not really exist. We still call ourselves whole of market (WoM) but we are not classed as independent, the terminology seems to change every few years for no good reason.

WoM means many different things, the likes of Countrywide mortgages used to have 15 lenders and be classed as WoM, we have access to about 80 and are classed the same. Most firms not tied to the large corporate estate agents will have access to many more than 15 though and realistically, although we have 80, I think we used about 12-15 lenders last year.

Hodge58

The Term Whole of market sadly does not actually mean whole.  The FCA specify that to be called mom you must offer a broad range of products from a range of providers. So for example a FTB buyer mortgage from 3 or 4  providers, (or more)
Ditto adverse credit or interest only etc.