Where else would we talk consistently about the need for consumers to get themselves specialist advice, be that in the areas such as equity release or mortgages or pensions or investment, and yet we also preach to advisers the benefits of them providing ‘holistic’ financial advice, of covering off as many client wants and needs as possible and ensuring they have as many strings to their bow/tools in their toolkit as possible.
It may lead to a situation where consumers are not quite sure what they are looking for. Are they in need of a ‘jack of all trades’ or should they genuinely be looking to find a specialist in each of these specific areas? The truth is of course that advisers can be ‘specialists’ in multiple areas however it’s often been the case that equity release specialists have traditionally tended to ‘stick to their knitting’ – that is they offer equity release advice and that’s it. I sense this one product focus is changing but there’s no doubting that being a specialist in one area can have its benefits although one would hope that the sector does not suffer any sort of collapse, otherwise you could be in trouble.
The specialist nature of equity release, and the need to have ‘specialists’ active within it, is not just necessary in the field of advice. What is also important within any equity release product-selling process is that all other participants have specialist knowledge. This is particularly important for the legal issues that equity release often raises and it is why we wholeheartedly recommend solicitor firms, for example such as Ashfords and other members of the Equity Release Solicitors Alliance (ERSA). For clients to go with a solicitor that does not know its equity release from its elbow is a dangerous exercise and, history has shown us, that it can potential derail the whole process.
At our Masterclass in December last year, Peter Barton of Ashfords gave a passionate plea for the advisers present to ensure their clients were not left in this position and, wherever possible, to make sure they opted for solicitors who were fully aware of the complexities and niche nature of equity release. Peter has seen all too often the outcome of the wrong choice whereby solicitors, who have an incredibly low level of equity release knowledge, end up putting the client off the product.
As he outlined, this is actually the provision of financial advice and there have been complaints made to the Law Society about solicitor firms who do this. There are very few solicitors in England and Wales that have both financial qualifications and legal qualifications, and if a solicitor is advising a client not to proceed with equity release they are effectively taking on a financial advice role and stepping outside of their permitted role, as governed by the Law Society.
It’s certainly a point worth knowing and making to any client considering the use of the services of a solicitor who is not a specialist in equity release. You, as the adviser, after all have been through an extremely thorough process in order to finally make a recommendation, using all your experience and expertise, and (let’s not forget) having passed qualifications and secured authorisation in order to carry out your services. These solicitors who turn off clients from the products with no expertise at all are some way removed from being a specialist in these matters and should therefore be avoided like the plague.
At the end of the day, the client has come to you for the equity release advice, not the solicitor, and that’s the way it should be. It’s up to you to work with the client to show them that having chosen specialist advice they now need to continue in this vein and get specialist legal support. Anything less, is likely to cause much more trouble than good.
