Sub-prime

Helen Morrissey talks to a panel of experts about how they expect the equity release market to develop

Six of the US's biggest banks have announced a plan to help homeowners struggling with their mortgage payments.

The arrears management processes of mortgage lenders often increase the arrears problems faced by borrowers, according to a report by Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB).

US President George Bush has unveiled plans to freeze interest rates on sub-prime mortgages to help alleviate the crisis engulfing the United States mortgage arena.

The FSA has banned one mortgage broker and fined two others for sub-prime failings, it announced this morning.

The Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLA) has branded a BBC Panorama investigation into mis-selling of sub-prime mortgages ‘unduly sensationalist' and ‘not representative of the market'.

Lenders are playing down concerns the US sub-prime mortgage crisis will spread to the UK.

The FSA's report into the sub-prime mortgage market, which resulted in the regulator taking action against five intermediary firms for ‘weaknesses' in their advice procedures, has been largely welcomed by the mortgage industry.

The FSA has begun enforcement proceedings against five intermediary firms in the sub-prime mortgage market after finding "weaknesses" in lending practices and in firms' assessments of a consumer's ability to afford a mortgage.

The FSA could force sub-prime mortgage lenders to shut out the very people they were set up to help, according to Reynolds Porter Chamberlain.