Terms of Business Letter

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) sets principles of good business and advisory practice to help you understand the commitment you are about to make. Your consultant has adopted these principles and is bound to follow the rules and guidelines laid down by the FSA. Your consultants Firm is registered with the FSA under number (474591).

Advisory Practice

You will be provided with a copy of our ‘initial disclosure document’ which sets out information about our services.
Your consultant may review the whole market or a limited panel when selecting an appropriate lender or insurance provider to suit your requirements. Your consultant will tell you which selection process they will use. Under the terms of mortgage and non-investment protection regulation there are two levels of service, advised and non-advised. Your consultant will typically provide an advised service and therefore make a recommendation on a specific product.
To enable your consultant to provide suitable advice regarding your mortgage requirements, you will be asked to complete a detailed mortgage and/or insurance questionnaire. If the information that you give is either incomplete or inaccurate, this may affect the suitability of the advice given.Your consultant will explain the features of the product and payment methods which will help you understand what specific requirements you may want in a mortgage or insurance product. Your consultant will also inform you of the costs and implications of taking out a mortgage or insurance product and what your obligations are. They will advise you what they consider suitable to meet your requirements and where available, recommend a mortgage or insurance product that meets these requirements. This recommendation will be confirmed in writing. You should keep this as it will be a record of our transaction. Certain details will also be confirmed by the lender or insurance provider in its offer or acceptance terms.

We may receive commission from the lender or insurance company to whom we place business. For mortgages your consultant will disclose the commission expected, if this is less than £250, we may confirm that we will receive up to this amount. If the fee is more than £250, we will tell you the exact amount. Commission on insurance products does need to be disclosed but your consultant will tell you if you ask.

Compliance

We will treat all of your personal information private and confidential, (even when you are no longer a customer), except where permitted by law, where disclosure is made at your personal request or with your consent when arranging your mortgage. In addition our Principle and the FSA require us, as part of their compliance activity, to allow them access to our customers records. They have confirmed that it will only use this access for the purpose of compliance monitoring. Should a complaint arise, in the first instance you should contact our Principle by writing to the Compliance Officer. They will acknowledge your complaint immediately and provide a full response within a reasonable time-scale. If you remain dissatisfied following our final response, they will help you to refer the matter to Financial Ombudsman Service whose address is; South Quay plaza, 183 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9SR.

Costs

To maintain our high standards of service our Principle is constantly updating our administration systems and procedures. The ongoing training of your consultant and therefore the ongoing regulatory and compliance costs of our practice have to be met. To this end, it is necessary that your consultant charges you an administration fee for the work involved in arranging your mortgage. This fee will be required upon submission of a mortgage application and can alter dependent on the complexity of your case.