Something about stable doors, bolting and lack of doing anything about this earlier comes to mind. The FSA must be the second most useless bunch of *** after the government. This practice has been going on for years and everyone knows that a high percentage of first time buyers only managed to get onto the property ladder at all because of these people.
Yes, it is wrong and yes it can lead to trouble but I am somewhat bemused by their decision to do something about it now. Affordability is like an MOT - at the time you took a mortgage out - it was affordable. It is the rise in the interest rates that causes the problems and that is not controlled by the FSA or the brokers. What was affordable one day has taken people over their limits on the next and that is what destroyed the housing market the first time through in the late 80s and early 90s.
Fixing a mortgage for life would at least sort out the ability to pay and resolve a number of other headaches at the same time, but no,everyone wants to be greedy so the poorer members of society end up paying and/or loosing their homes.
The FSA is like all the other quangos - as the name suggests Quite Unnecessary and No Good Official Slackers - they should be shut down like all the other idiots who only crawl out of the woodwork when it is too late to do any good.
SHARK!