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Call for FSA to regulate BTL
13 August 2010
Over half of estate agents think buy-to-let lending should be regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) according to research by movewithus. The property specialists said 51 per cent of the 200 estate agents surveyed believed regulation of the buy-to-let market was required by the FSA, soon to be the Consumer Protection and Markets Authority. Robin King, director of movewithus said: "If the advice given to buy-to-let investors had been regulated by a body, such as the FSA, we might have seen better investment advice and far fewer casualties when things went wrong in this sector. "Buy-to-let is still a vulnerable market because of the type of properties being bought and so it is interesting to see that a significant proportion of estate agents themselves would like to see the sector regulated." Stephen Smith, director of housing at Legal and General, said the FSA had consulted about extending the scope of its regulatory ambit to include the buy-to-let mortgage market. Mr Smith said the consultation did not extend as far as regulating buy-to-let as an investment, which appeared to be what the estate agents surveyed were pushing for. He said: "The proposal has some merit but would possibly reduce the flexibility of the buy-to-let market because it would put it into an advice structure and so the input of a financial adviser would be required." Published by FTAdviser
