In a follow-up to the article we mentioned here, Sarah Bright has revealed that the Treasury Committee may (at long last) investigate the equity release problem.
Steve Baker, who was last week re-elected as Conservative MP for Wycombe, says: ‘Close scrutiny of equity release is long overdue and I welcome the FCA’s action. In the event I am re-elected to the Treasury Select Committee I will certainly want to see an inquiry carried through.’
The article also quotes our own Kevin Dowd, who “has been investigating equity release mortgages for several years”, saying “I’m happy the regulator is looking into this because there’s plenty of scope for bad practice”, adding “Dowd believes consumers are collectively being conned out of millions of pounds due to being wrongly sold the schemes”.
Surprisingly, Age UK also righteously weighed in :
Caroline Abrahams, director at charity Age UK, is glad the regulator is going to look at how well this market is working in practice for older people. She says: ‘The equity release market is growing fast and there are lots of adverts promoting it both online and off.
Abrahams was silent about the issue of Age UK passing visitors to their website to an advisor who was seemingly not independent, as discussed in Eumaeus here and passim.