FSA bans mortgage broker for fraud
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The FSA says Stephen Sanders submitted the applications on behalf of customers which he knew contained false and misleading income information.
Sanders, who was a self-employed broker who worked across a number of firms in Cornwall, also withheld information from a prospective employer relating to an investigation into him by his former employer which resulted in his suspension.
The FSA says Sanders failed to disclose to the regulator that he was the subject of an ongoing disciplinary investigation into his conduct by his former employer when applying to the FSA to perform a controlled function.
For the first customer mortgage application, the income as stated in the mortgage application, was substantially higher that that declared by the customer to HMRC.
In the second mortgage application the income stated in a mortgage application included some of the income of the customer’s parents which was falsely described as his own.
In the third case there were discrepancies in the application about the income sources of the two customers who were making a joint application.
Sanders also submitted two application forms to mortgage lenders on his own behalf, in which he mistakenly declared your gross annual turnover rather than your net profit as required by the lender.
FSA director of enforcement Margaret Cole says: "Sanders submitted mortgage applications which he knew to be false and this posed a serious risk to lenders and confidence in the financial system."
She says the crackdown on mortgage fraud continues to be a priority for the regulator.
She adds:"We have banned more than 60 mortgage brokers over the last three years and we will continue to ban such people to reinforce the message that knowingly giving false and misleading information to prospective lenders is dishonest.
"Behaviour which shows lack of honesty and integrity will result in a ban."
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Readers' comments (2)
Evan Owen | 3 Aug 2009 11:29 am
Regulatory bias?
Yes there are some silly people out there but when will se see banks being banned for exactly the same, or worse? And when will we see 'consumers' being prosecuted for signing the application form which contained the 'fraudulent' statements? Is this simply the a case of the FSA trying to justify its existence, and failing?
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Jim Payne | 3 Aug 2009 1:43 pm
Bully boys
IFA's and mortgage brokers are easy targets for the FSA to weald the big stick at. Trying desperately to look 'macho'.
When the banks 'miss-classify' investment funds and then put a the whole of a pensioners savings into a single fund nothing happens. The bank has yet to be told to compensate the client but, as with the FSA itself, nobody is likely ever to be blamed. Nobody will loose their job or be prevented from working in the industry ever again! Imagine if that had been an IFA, he would have been told to compensate the client, be fined by the FSA and have his license revoked!
Ce la vie!
The FSA, having completely failed to regulate the banks and markets, is trying to compensate for having cost the UK taxpayer billions by 'getting tough' with SME's.
Pleading, as the Chairman recently did, that the systems, expertise and personnel they had within the FSA would have to be used in future, regardless of the name of the QUANGO in the foyer, merely confirms that the bureaucrats think that continually expanding the rules, systems, procedures and personnel is the answer to everything.
I truly hope that the FSA is disbanded and most of it's management and staff de-mobbed.
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