Following news of several mortgage brokers who have been rejected from lenders’ panels (FA 10 March), this is typical of the high-handed, arrogant and obnoxious attitude of lenders that was half the reason why we got out of mortgages some eight years ago. I have never regretted it.
The other half of the reason I got out of mortgages was the blatantly criminal behaviour of lenders who sent their business development managers out to promise advisers that they would make any application ‘fit’, so greedy were they for bonus-boosting business.
That is the great untold story of the credit crunch – how the senior management of the mortgage banks encouraged criminal behaviour by borrowers and mortgage advisers. The only bigger disgrace is that none went to jail.
It is by no means uncommon to see consumers prosecuted for fraudulently obtaining mortgages. But where were the prosecutions of the mortgage bank bosses who actively conspired and encouraged others to conspire to commit mortgage fraud, bringing about the destruction of the institutions who paid their wages?
Neil Liversidge
Managing director,
West Riding Personal Financial Solutions,
Castleford,
West Yorkshire
