Let’s be blunt: the recent Government roundtables with banks and building societies regarding how to get more first-time buyers onto the ladder, can absolutely be seen as a marginalisation of advisers/advice/Consumer Duty – I could go on.
Which, when you consider that over 90% of all mortgages come through the advisory channel, not only beggars belief but should give us all a kick up the collective backside.
When you see a list of bank and building society attendees, with their trade body reps, but no hint of an advisory presence – or indeed those who might represent first-timers - then you might also ascertain this Government isn’t truly serious about good consumer outcomes for any borrower, let alone those who are just about to embark on the homebuying journey for the first time.
If you’re serious about improving outcomes you surely need an ongoing conversation with the people who sit between policy and the public every single day? Not occasionally, not when it suits the press grid, but all the time.
Take that recent Government ‘first-time buyer’ meeting as Exhibit A. Lenders lend money; advisers advise. Both roles matter, but they are not the same, and if you build policy with one and expect the other to make it work, you shouldn’t be surprised when reality pushes back.
On the ground, we’re the ones explaining to a 28-year-old nurse why the new-build incentive isn’t ‘free’, or to a 31-year-old teacher why the headline rate becomes very expensive for them once you add fees, term and tie-ins.
We’re the ones unpicking shared ownership leases, staircasing costs, rent reviews, and what a down-valuation does to a chain. We’re also the first to see patterns: first-timers stepping back in, pockets where offers go over asking, criteria clashes that make no sense in the real world. If you want policy that lands cleanly, you talk to the people who see this every day.
Of course this isn’t just about first-time buyers. The sector has been crystal clear for years about the levers that actually move activity. Stamp duty is the best example.
Reduce the friction and you mobilise chains: second-steppers list properties, downsizers move, smaller homes come back to market, first-timers purchase. We only need to go back to the market in the immediate post-pandemic period with its SDLT holiday to see what can be achieved: confidence up, transactions up, the market moving again.
Nigel Wilson, then Group CEO of L&G, and others put the case in black and white: get SDLT right, especially in areas like down-sizing, and you stimulate the market without blowing a hole in receipts.
Regulators need to learn the same lesson here. The FCA’s DP floats ideas that could materially change affordability for first-timers - from using rent history to revisiting stress testing. Innovation is welcome. But if you’re going to ‘turn the dials’ for new buyers, you also need the safeguard that comes with proper advice.
Someone has to test scenarios, compare across the whole market, document the ‘why nots’, explain the risks, and carry accountability for the recommendation. That is advice territory. Turning the lending taps without the advisory guard rails is how you end up with short-term volume and long-term regrets.
If Government and the regulator want Consumer Duty to mean something outside a slide deck, they need the people bound by it in the room when decisions are made.
So what does ‘ongoing engagement’ actually look like? It’s not complicated. Ensure adviser representation at these meetings and engage separately with us. Quarterly, at minimum, engagement with Treasury and the FCA, with published action points.
Use pilots with real feedback loops before you move the goalposts. Bring a handful of practitioners to every session and ask them to bring real cases: one that worked, one that nearly worked, one that failed, and ask them to tell you why.
Crucially, join the dots. First-time buyer support only works if the rest of the chain can move. That means stamp duty reform not just for first-time buyers but also to free second-steppers to trade up without being clobbered.
It means planning and supply, obviously, but it also means clearing day-to-day grit from the gears - valuation inconsistency, criteria that punishes sensible cases, processing that collapses because a lender has pulled a range with two hours’ notice. Advisers live with this. We can tell you where it bites and how to fix it.
None of this downgrades lenders. Quite the opposite. Lenders bring capital, risk systems and product engineering. Advisers bring suitability, whole of market comparison and client comprehension. Government brings the levers of tax, planning, regulation. When those three talk constantly, not sporadically, you get should get policies that work in practice.
But, as a minimum, we’ve got to be in the room.
