13
Jul
People buying houses for sale 'are concerned about access to
finance'
Homebuyers hoping to purchase their dream house for sale are more
concerned about funding their mortgage than about "risk lending",
an expert has said.
Council of Mortgage Lenders' (CML) director general Michael Coogan
was speaking after the Financial Services Authority (FSA) released
its paper on responsible lending.
The FSA proposed that restrictions over mortgage lending should
become stricter, removing "self-cert" mortgages, which allow
homebuyers to verify their own finances.
However, Mr Coogan said: "There will always be a regulatory
trade-off between protecting consumers from over-borrowing and
increasing the barriers to home-ownership."
He added that "consumers will feel the costs of imposing new
regulatory requirements".
A "pragmatic approach to implementation" was something the mortgage
expert hopes the FSA could adopt to "reduce the negative
side-effects that may arise from well-intentioned
regulation".
The restrictions may be getting tighter but the number of mortgage
products available has risen over the last few months, according to
recent figures from Mortgage Britain.
It also showed that there were now over 6,000 loan schemes for
homebuyers in the UK.