Our monthly newsletter for February has a heavy focus on Consumer Duty and the opportunities to learn more about the “Green” agenda.

In addition to our second blog on Consumer Duty implementation, we have now completed our work with our lender trade body partners on the products and services and price and value outcomes.  The new “Duty” requirements ask lenders to provide intermediaries with details of their products and to confirm that they consider them to deliver fair value.  To assist firms in meeting this, we have agreed standard templates which lenders can use to satisfy the rules.

The template is a business-to-business document and is not intended to be shared with consumers.  It is not prescriptive and it will be for lenders to decide how best to complete it, particularly the level of detail required in relation to their product ranges and target markets.  Lenders will determine the number of templates that are needed to cover their product ranges, taking a pragmatic approach to minimise numbers, given intermediary firms will access information sheet(s) from each lender they have on panel.  These should be made available to all firms by the end of April 2023 – the working group is still in discussions on how best to distribute.

It’s likely the completed templates will be reviewed by a select number of staff at intermediary firms, as the price and value and products and services outcomes sit at a general product or service level rather than individual customer level. Mortgage advisers won’t be required to review the templates and assess fair value as part of each mortgage transaction.

I am also delighted that we have now completed our work in partnership with the Green Finance Institute to produce the Brokers Handbook on Green & Retrofit Technologies.  This will be a vital resource in helping decarbonise the UK’s housing stock and is designed to help all brokers understand the options available, identify support that is in the market and places to look for more information.  It will be available via our greenmortgageadvice.uk website.  In addition, the handbook is officially accredited as structured CPD by The London Institute of Banking and Finance (LIBF). 

This is a major step forward to ensure brokers can be part of the green journey and work with lenders to deliver solutions for customers.  It will become increasingly important that advisers can answer questions to drive optimal solutions at the right time.

Finally, please see the section on building safety and let us know if you feel that lenders or conveyancers are not supporting these new initiatives to assist those residing in flats subject to building safety remediation works.