The Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) has revealed that 86% of brokers believe there is still a mortgage prisoner issue.

Of those, a quarter felt that the problem was getting worse, but the remainder felt that whilst there was an issue circumstances were improving.

The research, which was undertaken in conjunction with NMG Consulting, asked brokers about the extent of the mortgage prisoner issue, following the FCA indicating in its May 2016 post MMR Responsible Lending Thematic Review that from its work with lenders, that there was no obvious issue.

In order to scale the problem, 76% of brokers have less than 10% of their clients who are prisoners, whilst 18% estimate that between 10-20% of their clients are mortgage prisoners. 6% of brokers have more than 20% of their clients who cannot get a new deal.

Robert Sinclair (pictured), chief executive of AMI, said: “Despite the assurances from lenders, lender trade bodies and our regulator, we continue to hear evidence for our firms of a continuing problem. Whilst interest rates remain low, the issue is unlikely to surface significantly. However, as soon as rates rise we have no doubt that what is a trickling stream will become a flood and the industry will have to address matters.

“This covers a range of issues including weak loan to value, prior self certification, interest only, self employed and those with credit blips but a good mortgage payment record. We hope that the supervision teams at FCA begin to take this seriously and look properly at the extent of this issue and whether all lenders are acting in the best interest of all their mortgage customers.”