Easy switching… coming soon

It has been reported recently that it will become much easier to switch such things as your mortgage to alternative providers than is currently the case. You will all have struggled to switch providers in the past, and not necessarily your mortgage provider – just attempting to switch your TV package becomes a battle of wills with certain providers!

New government plans will give homeowners the legal right to switch mortgage providers within seven days – an improvement on the current switching timescales, which on average are about two months. This means people will be better able to take advantage of lower-priced deals with other providers. This move is designed to bring the mortgage market more in line with energy, broadband, phone and bank account switching, the rules for which were revised recently.

There are concerns that it will encourage irresponsible lending, as there may be insufficient time to carry out the appropriate checks. Whilst this is obviously an important consideration, a reduction in the time it takes to process mortgage switching applications would be indispensable to ensure that customers benefit from better deals and are not locked in a paperwork battle for months on end.

No plans have yet been finalised so who knows if this will come to fruition, but fingers crossed.