Long Overdue: Regulation Of Finance & Mortgage Brokers

by Tim O’Dwyer M.A., LL.B Queensland Solicitor & Consumer Advocate watchdog@argonautlegal.com.au

It has been almost two years since the release of the Ministerial Council of Consumer Affairs’ Discussion Paper detailing options for a national regulatory scheme for finance and mortgage brokers.

On Monday this week ABC Radio’s The World Today programme reported on what it described as “the miserable and sad end of the property boom in some Australian cities.”

Easy money and climbing interest rates had combined to deliver unprecedented rates of mortgage foreclosures, amid stories of locked-out homeowners and thousands of others hovering on the brink of losing their dream. One Western Sydney real estate agent spoke of loans being pushed: “You’ve got your no docs, your low docs…if you’ve got bad credit, don’t worry, come and see us, all those things.

And we’re seeing quite a few where the people just shouldn’t have been borrowing the amount of money that they’ve borrowed.”

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