Rob Jupp: The madness that was March

The last nine working days of March were complete lunacy and were a clear result of the Chancellor not thinking through the impact of his decisions.

Rob Jupp
22nd April 2016
Rob Jupp

The introduction of the MCD on the 21st March bringing second charges in line with firsts, was a real upheaval for many in financial services, particularly brokers and second charge lenders who are having to get used to a completely new way of doing business in some cases.  

Then the Chancellor announced in his Autumn Statement last November, that the new buy-to-let stamp duty regime would come into place just over a week later, with borrowers having to complete on any second home purchase by midnight on 31 March, if they wanted to avoid paying an extra 3% stamp duty.

Understandably this leading to a flurry of buy-to-let transactions all needing completion before the 1st April - just at the same time that brokers and lenders were trying to get to grips with the new MCD regime.  Add to that a very early Easter and the loss of two working days and together it led to a perfect storm.  

It put brokers and lenders under a ridiculous amount of pressure, with people at some lenders working until midnight and throughout the whole Easter weekend in order to fulfil their commitment to borrowers and complete their mortgages on time.  It led to a lot of people being under a lot of unnecessary strain, especially as so many people were also foregoing their usual four-day break.

This stupid situation never should have happened; it was a result of a complete lack of joined up thinking by people who clearly do not know what is involved in our market, in completing a loan, or getting to grips with significant regulatory changes.  For those to come at the same time was madness and no-one who had ever worked in the mortgage market, or even in wider financial services would have made such a decision without realising the consequences - and that was without any consideration that Easter was also so early this year, resulting in a greater number of staff on holiday.

There was no excuse for it, even the smallest amount of consultation would have revealed what turned out to be inevitable mayhem.

My commendation goes to the staff at the all lenders who gave up their own Easter breaks in order to make sure that every buy-to-let mortgage that could go through, did go through, and ensured that brokers could fulfil their commitments to their clients.  Fortunately, it was an example of what working in partnership can achieve and highlighted some of the great working relationships between brokers and lenders, but it is a situation that never should have happened.

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