Consumers getting poor advice from many mortgage advisors
According to a recent report consumers in the UK are receiving poor mortgage related advice from many mortgage advisors at a time when it has become more crucial than ever to get the right advice from a qualified and experienced professional. The report comes from the consumer campaign group, Which?, with officials from the group claiming that many mortgage personal loan advisors are failing consumers by providing them with poor, ineffective advice.
The group compiled the information after researching the market. Researchers from Which? posed as customers and visited fifty banks, estate agents, and independent advisors to get mortgage related advice. Alarmingly only four out of the fifty actually provided advice that was considered to be of an acceptable standard. A massive forty one advisors left out at least one key piece of information when providing advice to the researchers.
Researchers also said that many of the advisors were focussing more on selling insurance cover to the customer than providing effective and accurate advice. An official from the group said: "Too many of the advisers that we visited took a ‘one size fits all’ approach or seemed as concerned with selling an insurance policy on the side." He added: "There are still more than 3,000 mortgage deals out there, and the difference in cost can be thousands of pounds a year, so it’s vital people do their homework and choose their adviser with care."
An official from the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries said that independent advisors were very different from sales advisors in estate agents and banks, stating: "Independent mortgage advisers provide advice that is wholly focussed on the individual consumer’s needs. In contrast, banks and building societies may offer only generic information. The study found that although there was a general failure among mortgage advisers to give acceptable mortgage advice those that performed best were independent mortgage advisers."