In 2016, something happened that I believe was unprecedented. We are accustomed to seeing employees in one company or another fight for their rights. Self-employed individuals usually do not fight for their rights for two reasons:a. They don't have the privilege of striking. If they don't open the office today, they won't have clients next month either.B. Their peers are also their competitors, so it is difficult for them to cooperate.When banks decided in 2016 to deny their clients the option of representation by their own advisor when taking out a mortgage, mortgage advisors managed to collaborate and embark on a social struggle.The Association of Housing Finance Consultants / Mortgage Consultants has achieved tremendous accomplishments in their dealings with banks over the past year and a half, successes that few have managed before. The association has been active in, among other things, the following areas:Ensure that customer representation vis-à-vis the bank is anchored, initially in Bank of Israel regulations and, in a second stage, in legislation.Participate in numerous Knesset discussions and serve as a professional source of information for lawmakers, thereby breaking the banks' monopoly on information. Among the laws and regulations we have contributed to are: the option to postpone mortgage payments for three months for the unemployed, and extending the validity of a mortgage offer to 24 days instead of 12.Ensure that only advisors with a minimum level of professionalism and professional ethics can advise clients. We will achieve this by making it law, but in the meantime, we are filtering association members through an exam, an admissions committee, and an ethics committee to remove errant advisors. Your election, the clients', byRegistered consultant The association guarantees you a certain and ever-increasing professional and ethical standard. Checking if your consultant is a registered consultant is easy: enter www.hfca.org.il And look on the list (which has about 250 advisors) for your advisor. If they are on it, you're all set.Continue deepening the consultants' knowledge through professional development, training, and knowledge-sharing systems. All consultants who are members of the association attend two annual seminars with a total of 4 training days.It was a great honor to be among the founders of the association in its early days and from the beginning of 2016 to be elected to the association's management. Together with all other members of the association, we will continue to fight for the right of Israeli citizens to receive unbiased and professional advice and not to settle for "sales" advice given at the bank.