Boyd sees highly qualified advisers as the best-placed to ensure “the safety and security of the greater market”.
Historically, the equity release industry has been fighting a battle to better its reputation, which took a knock in the eighties and nineties amid a number of scandals leaving people with big amounts of debt.
This is why the council, founded back in 1991, has introduced a guarantee of no negative equity for its members.
In the last few years, equity release sales have steadily climbed. Between 2013 and 2018, sales nearly doubled. This saw product options rise from 86 in January 2018 to 221 in January 2019, according to council’s data.
Then in June the number of equity release products hit a 15-year high.
Kay Ingram, director of public policy at LEBC Group, said: “We recommend equity release to around 1 in 3 clients, because often people have other options. We’ve seen advisers discover pensions for clients they didn’t realise they had.”
Ingram cited a client of an adviser in her network. “One chap in his eighties was sitting on £130,000 in back-dated payments from a state pension he thought they’d write to him about, which is why he hadn’t drawn from it.”
To help advisers to navigate equity release products and decide whether they’re appropriate for their clients, the council has published a number of resources.
“It’s obviously the role of the council to support our advisers hugely,” said Boyd. “And over the course of last year, we've developed some extraordinary material for them.”
The chief executive cited an adviser guide, as well as a competency framework which came out this year to support advisers’ continual professional development (CPD).
But advisers think the council should be focusing its communications on clients, not their intermediary network. And this concern is supported by data.
A study by Boon Brokers, released last month, found six out of ten homeowners aged over 55 would never consider equity release, with many admitting they still aren’t clear on what it is.
“There’s a very high level of misunderstanding about modern equity release products,” said Gerard Boon, founder and partner at Boon Brokers.
“People automatically dismiss it due to its reputation and admittedly, in the past, there were products which weren’t fit for purpose and which were mis-sold.”
Now the industry is regulated, products are aplenty in volume and options, there is a very different message to convey to the public. One which the council is yet to master.
ruby.hinchliffe@ft.com
