We are intensifying our crackdown on mortgage fraud to tackle this serious and widespread problem.  It is essential that, as a mortgage broker, you have sufficient controls in place to prevent your firm being used for committing fraud. 

You should also remember you are responsible for reporting any wider suspicions of fraudulent activity, or examples of poor practices resulting in potential fraud you have noticed.  This is in addition to your statutory duty to report suspicious activity.

What to report

The following are examples of what you should report:

• Instances when it has come to your attention (for example during discussions with clients) that other brokers have been:
• encouraging applicants to inflate their income or provide false employment details on mortgage applications; or
• offering clients access to false documents (bank statements, utility bills, wage slips, accountant references, passports etc) to support mortgage applications.
• Concerns about a lender's Business Development Manager (BDM) –such as instances where they might have encouraged you to favour certain products where they may not be suitable, or to manipulate client details to fit criteria.

What to include in your report

Please send us as much information as possible – we will treat everything you give us as strictly confidential.  To help, we have created a reporting document that you may want to use.

Save your own version (using the 'file' then 'save as' functions. Before doing so you must ensure that you are saving the 'final' version of the document. Look at the task bar in the top left hand corner of the screen. This should say 'Final'. If it does not, then change it by using the drop down menu before saving. If you do not see 'Final' on the task bar - or are using an older version of Microsoft Windows - then on the task bar you should click on 'View' and scroll down to 'Markup'. Uncheck it and then save the document).

Information from brokers - reporting document [DOC]

Contact

Please clearly mark your information 'Information from Broker – Mortgage Intelligence' and send it to our Firm Contact Centre at the address below:

fcc@fsa.gov.uk