missing remortgage quota was our hamster wheel for years and its absence is as conspicuous as Freddie Starr’s is from the jungle. Grade: C - but an improvement on last year’s market truancy
G IS FOR GEORGE AND GUARANTEE
“Halifax has now spent three years in Abbey’s slip- stream and that mustn’t be allowed to become four or fi ve. The brand is still a Rolls Royce phenomenon, but it’s been straight-jack- eted in a Mondeo chassis where too often it is the default option for brokers when lenders with sharper products decline an enquiry”
Specifi cally mortgage indemnity guarantee – hopefully the government’s housing strategy is not a token gesture. Similar schemes have worked well overseas for years, for example in Canada, and coupled with the help for developers and council tenants it seems that the government is fi nally starting to get it. Especially with Project Merlin having been such an unmitigated own-goal. This article pre-dates the autumn statement from the Chancellor but if these schemes pass the small-print scrutiny then I’m already looking forward to seeing shadow Chancellor Ed Balls being told to sit down and “calm down dear”. Grade: B (probationary)
H IS FOR HALIFAX
The good news is that the brand is still most synonymous with mortgages and that alone should be the fulcrum of its now over-running strategic review. It retains a very good grading. But maybe it’s the memory of halcyon days that now sees Halifax fast becoming the Arsenal of the mortgage sector! Everyone’s favourite second team, inoffensive and still a contender but perhaps now over-reliant on one dimension. In the latter’s case it’s the mercurial Van Persie, in the former’s it’s the equally fl eet-footed Premier team who, aided by the sector’s band-aid that has been product transfer fees, are indeed premier class. The Gunners’ decline has been a shocking seven years in the making and is fuelled by an unwanted American executive t hat scandalously plays on the demographics of London prices and the deluded “in Arsene we trust” dogma of others. Comparably, Halifax has now spent
three years in Abbey’s slipstream and that mustn’t be allowed to become four or fi ve. The brand is still a Rolls Royce phenomenon, but it’s been straight- jacketed in a Mondeo chassis where too often it is the default option for brokers when lenders with sharper products decline an enquiry. In short, we want our Hali back! Grade: B+
I IS FOR INDIVIDUAL REGISTRATION AND INJUSTICE
There would have been fewer worthier outcomes than having a nationwide register for mortgage brokers. Yet the FSA saw differently amid a Mortgage Market Review process that is now as slow- moving as Nancy Dell’Olio’s paso doble. Simultaneously there is the injustice of fi rms having to pay £500 for a Financial Ombudsman Service referral when all the statistics point to so many claims being vexatious or frivolous. Perhaps the resources that should have been utilised on the registration project could be diverted to policing the worst of the claims chasing opportunists out of Dodge. Alas, David Beckham may fail to give an interview without mentioning his Olympic East-end roots before that happens! Grade: F
J IS FOR JOSTLING, JOUSTING AND JUGGLING
By which I refer to the industry’s big beasts continuing to consolidate selectively. Countrywide and LSL Property Services are our two Klitchko brothers
mortgage introducer DECEMBER 2011 29
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