Consumer Duty for Mortgage Advisers: Case Records and Evidence in 2026

Consumer Duty is already in force for mortgage intermediaries in scope. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) describes the Duty as raising the bar on consumer protection, requiring firms to put customers’ needs first, and applying to mortgage intermediaries that determine or materially influence customer outcomes. Its communications to the mortgage intermediary sector have also stressed that firms should be able to define, monitor, evidence and stand behind the outcomes customers experience.

This article summarises that regulatory framing in plain language. It is not legal advice; always take your own compliance and legal counsel.

Consumer Duty is already in force. In 2026, mortgage advisers should expect the FCA to continue focusing on how well firms can evidence good customer outcomes—with clear records of advice, communications, decisions and ongoing monitoring—rather than on a new one-off deadline or a single prescribed case-file template.

Timelines: what actually changed, and when

The FCA’s published timelines are about when the Duty applied across the market, not a bespoke “2026 case-file overhaul” milestone for advisers.

• 31 July 2023 — Duty in force for new and existing products or services that are open to sale or renewal.
• 31 July 2024 — Duty in force for closed products and services.

For the years ahead, the regulator’s public narrative has stressed embedding the Duty—using it as far as possible as the lens for conduct and outcomes, rather than inventing new prescriptive checklists for every scenario. That is important context when you read anything that sounds like “the FCA will mandate a fixed bundle of documents in every file by 2026.” The Duty is outcomes-led; the type and format of evidence will vary by firm, product and customer journey.

Principles matter more than a one-size-fits-all template

The FCA expects firms to assess, test, understand and evidence outcomes. It has been clear that evidence should be proportionate and that it does not prescribe a single template for how every firm proves the same point—by analogy, it has said that even for board-level reporting there is no one mandatory format.

That is not a licence for thin records. It means regulators are asking whether customers get good outcomes, and whether you can show how your advice, service and oversight supported those outcomes—not whether every file matches an identical rubric dreamed up by a vendor.

Mortgage advice also sits on top of existing conduct rules—including MCOB and longstanding expectations around suitability of advice and adequate records of the advice given and the information relied on. Consumer Duty adds the cross-cutting expectation that good outcomes are central, visible and demonstrable across products and channels.

What “strong” case records tend to cover (without overclaiming)

No blog post (and no software vendor) can replace the FCA handbook or your compliance team’s view. In general, however, records that hold up under scrutiny usually make it possible to reconstruct:

• Who the customer is, what they needed, and what you recommended—and why.
• Material information you used and key communications (including caveats, risks and alternatives the customer should have understood).
• How suitability was reached, in line with MCOB and your firm’s procedures—not a vague summary written days later from memory.
• What happened next—applications, product selection, remediation if something changed, and ongoing checks where the journey is not a one-off transaction.

A defensible formulation is: firms should keep records sufficient to evidence suitability, decision-making, communications, and good customer outcomes under existing MCOB obligations and Consumer Duty, in the way your governance and monitoring framework requires—not because an article quoted a fictional universal list “by 2026.”

Industry guidance: AMI and information-sharing

The Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) has published Consumer Duty material developed with industry bodies (including UK Finance, the Building Societies Association and IMLA) on information-sharing considerations. That guidance is valuable for thinking through how data moves between firms and partners under the Duty. It is not, on its face, an FCA-authored or FCA-mandated case file contents checklist—treat it as sector context, not a substitute for the FCA’s rules and your own policies.

Reducing admin without blurring the compliance line

Strong evidence and good client experience can point in the same direction: less time lost to chasing documents and re-keying facts usually means clearer, more contemporaneous records. The risk is the opposite—scattered email threads, duplicate PDFs and ad hoc spreadsheets—that make it hard to show what was true at the time of advice.

Automating reminders, structured document collection and consistent case timelines does not replace judgment; it reduces friction so advisers can spend capacity on advice quality and outcomes, not purely on reconstruction after the fact.

Where Cleera fits (soberly)

Cleera is practice-management software: case pipeline, client portal, document workflows, e-signatures and a structured, timestamped history of activity on a case. Many firms use tools like that so they are not relying on informal channels when they need to demonstrate what happened, when, and on what basis.

We do not claim independent regulatory certification or that using Cleera guarantees FCA compliance—that is for your firm, your processes and your professional advisers to determine. We do believe that orderly records in one system are a practical aid when you need to evidence advice, decisions and client interactions under MCOB and Consumer Duty.

What this is useful for: firms that want less fragmentation between “the advice,” “the file” and “the audit trail,” and more confidence that the story of the case is recoverable without heroic effort.

Key takeaways

• Consumer Duty is live; key application dates were July 2023 (open business) and July 2024 (closed business)—not a new 2026 start line for “case file law.”
• The FCA focuses on outcomes and evidence; it does not publish a single universal case-file template for every intermediary.
• Mortgage advisers should align records with MCOB and Consumer Duty: suitability, material communications, decisions and monitoring—as your firm defines proportionate evidence.
• AMI information-sharing guidance is helpful context, not an FCA case-file mandate.
• Technology can support structured records; compliance remains your accountability.