Regulation must be cost... er, er, er, effective
It surprised none of us. Council of Mortgage Lenders' chairman George Wise told delegates to the CML Forum 99 that the method used to regulate the mortgage industry should be chosen on its cost-effectiveness.

Well, that may appear self-evident to you and me, which is why you might want to ask yourself why Mr Wise is so keen to mention it. My guess is that lenders are emphasising costs because they will resist regulation by a third party (the Financial Services Authority) by suggesting that the cost of doing so will be less cost-effective than regulating themselves.

Nor is Wise the only one who is keen to cost-effectiveness: the CML has stressed it in press releases (the modern press's main way of acquiring "news" these days) and we hear rumours that MPs on the CML dining circuit have been having their ears filled with worries about the costs of independent mortgage industry regulation.

Wise himself acknowledges how much the CML is stressing costs. He told delegates:

"The CML has stated many times... that what matters to consumers and to the mortgage industry is to have an effective and cost-effective regulatory regime."

I suspect that lenders will come up with a very different balance between effectiveness and cost-effectiveness to the balance most consumers would come up with. Let's hope that our, ahem, representatives in Parliament remember that. They are going to have a hard job keeping their thoughts unmuddied though. Wise, for example, took time out to tell us that the choice between statutory and voluntary regulation was "very much a second-rung issue".

"Earth calling Mr Wise... Earth calling Mr Wise..."

The choice between statutory and voluntary regulation is very much the first-rung issue. Primarily because many of your members casually abuse their customers. Mandatory regulation lets the rest of us help set up the standards they have to abide by. Voluntary regulation does not.

I doubt that Mr Wise is listening though: he followed up the "second-rung" comment with a self-congratulatory fanfare for the British mortgage industry that attributed to them almost every aspect of British achievement short of learning to walk on two legs.

More online mortgages
However, the US is coming to the mortgage industry's aid, in the form of MSN. MSN is Microsoft's web portal and it has added mortgage tools to its web-site at www.msn.co.uk.

I haven't had a chance to try them yet but they include the fast-becoming-a-standard mortgage calculator (where you submit your details, get an idea of what it's all going to cost you and presumably become a direct marketer's dream mail target). There's a mortgage news section, which contains (mercifully) information on why endowments are not always a good thing. MSN is going to have to generate money somehow so don't expect to see the down and dirty stuff on lenders but the site does look fact-packed. It also explains why MSN have been poking around the Home Repossession Page so thoroughly over the last couple of months.

Whistleblower makes the ultimate sacrifice
A reader tipped me off about a MoneyMail story last week that claimed the Mortgage Code Register of Intermediaries has parted company with compliance officer Monty Burn after he wrote The Mortgage Bible, a book sold by the Mail. I should point out here that there is some confusion over whether it was the Mail or the Mirror. Reporter John Husband wrote that Burn blew the whistle on scams used by lenders and apparently published them in the Mail's book without MCRI permission. Burn (Husband claims) says he didn't use his own name and didn't do any damage to MCRI. His identity was published by a finance industry trade magazine. Husband said the most common scam was to encourage borrowers to take out endowment mortgages - because the mortgages earn lenders with a fat commission.

We'll keep you posted.

Government to clamp down on mortgage lenders
The Sunday Times reports that chancellor Gordon Brown has ordered Treasury drones to gather evidence that mortgage lenders are ripping people off. Apparently Brown is disturbed that lenders didn't pass on much of the latest round of interest rate cuts. He's told officials to gather evidence that lenders are not revealing to potential customers how much the lender will make out of selling home insurance and lock-in periods on discounted mortgage deals. He's also concerned that they are hiding mortgage administration charges and disapproves of the one-off payments that many lenders apply at the start of a mortgage.

The Sunday Times tries to put all this into perspective. It says the average borrower is paying [sterling]1,000 more a year than they would have in the early 1960s - even though mortgage lending rates are the same.

There's not much there for repossessees. I'm afraid we're still off the radar screen.

MPs jump on the statutory regulation bandwagon
MP Paul Flynn (Labour, Newport West) has tabled an early day motion calling for lenders to be regulated by a legal body rather than themselves. He's apparently supported by six other MPs. Unfortunately, there's little chance of an early day motion becoming law - they are more like a public statement and are designed to focus attention on an issue. With MPs generally having memories that go back only as far as the last lobbyist sponsored luncheon, there's little chance that the early day motion will focus the other 644 MPs' attention for long. But it's good to know that a few of them care.

Changes to the web-site
The lender voting system now includes a link to another graph that tries to smooth out the distortions caused by the different sizes of lenders.

We've added two more lawyers to the Paid Help listing in the Who Helps? Section. These were recommended to us by repossession specialists. They said these lawyers were particularly astute - a rare thing in the repossession industry.

We've also added extra sources of help and extra details to the existing sources of help in the Free Help section.

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