Friday, Jul 25, 2008
What took them so long?
BBC News: Buy-to-let firm faces questions
The Beeb have finally woken up to the fact that Inside Track and their sister company IAP were nothing more than a bunch of shysters..
Posted by uncle tom @ 02:28 PM (640 views) Add Comment
6 Comments
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1. techieman said...
If its not regulated you have to do your homework. Boiler room types. But no tears shed by me - if i buy any asset i do some homework. A car? Yep thats gonna depreciate but i consume it so im happy. If someone said buy a fleet of Mondeos using a loan secured on them would you? Nope course not. But if the asset class was property people fell for the old property always goes up line - in most cases without even bothering to take a look. I own a timeshare have done since 85 its a nice place in a nice area and i paid too much. I knew i paid too much though and it didnt bother me. Again its a consumerable.
Basically houses really shouldnt be touted as investment vehicles because when it all comes down to it you home (rented or bought) is a place to live. end of.
Its called caveat emptor - if you are adults and want to fall for a shyster really who else have you to blame but yourself. I got a phone call the other day for a tip for a horse that "will win" all i had to do was give them £100. I couldnt stop laughing. Do people really fall for this i said? The bloke said "you'd be surprised"! Now work that one out for yourself!
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3. paul said...
It is rather shameful that the BBC has forgotten "caveat emptor". Yes the regulator should have kept a close eye on them - so what the BBC should be focusing its attention is rooting for the Parliamentary Ombudsman to claim maladministration against the FSA.
But the FSA and the BBC are part of the state machine - couldn't have that now could we?
4. uncle tom said...
You can quote 'Caveat Emptor', and 'Fools and their money are easily parted' but this operation was so similar to the old time-share scams, it should have been strangled at an early age.
The real problem is that a lot of people are vulnerable to high pressure sales techniques, be it BTL, time-share or the rostrum 'auctions' that used to take place in community halls (maybe they still do, but no longer round here)
Aside from government, the organisation that needs to put its house in order is RICS. They urgently need to root out their members who provided inflated valuations, and publicly kick them out.
5. jack c said...
@paul - Instant Access Properties Ltd (IAP) and its sister company Inside Track Seminars Ltd (ITS) are not regulated by the FSA - the FSA has no role in regulating "training companies" offering seminars and involvement in residential property - similar to the fact that they dont regulate EA's or letting agents - as it stands at the moment buy to let mortgages are not regulated by the FSA - there are odd exceptions to this ie where a BTL property is to be let to a family member it will become subject to the rules & regs on a standard residential mortgage and u therefore need a licence
Unless they change the rules you can set up a carbon copy company to that of Inside Trash (say £1 nominal share capital to limit your liability) and offer the same "service" as IT did together with BTL mortgages
6. techieman said...
UT - first and foremost you need to (as a punter) look for the regulation. If they are not regulated then these "investors" can only blame themselves. Whether they should or should not be regulated is another issue (i think they should be - its outrageous to me that we had a crash in the 90s and to this day as Jack says anyone can be an estate agent). We only hear of these vulnerable types when the market falls. Its a mixture of greed and blinkers.
Re the RICS - yes would concur with that but again the vulnerable types would have been all too happy with the "discounts" they were getting and just thought they would be able to sell on higher.In that way i would be none too surprised it valuers were encouraged to overvalue to secure the loans - whether that be for the sponsors or the vulnerable types themselves!
All of these points are classic bubble phenomenum or is that phenomena?