CeMAP FRE2 Exam Guide: Format and How to Pass

6 min read · facts checked 11 Oct 2026

FRE2 (Skills, Principles and Ethical Behaviours) is one of the five units of the Certificate in Mortgage Advice and Practice in the structure Walbrook introduced on 30 September 2025. It sits in the FSRE (Financial Services, Regulation and Ethics) module. You sit it online, on demand, under remote invigilation, and you need 28 out of 40 (70%) to pass.

The FRE2 exam at a glance

What the syllabus covers

• Advice skills: the fact-find, assessing needs, recommendations and records.
• The Principles for Businesses, the Conduct Rules and the Consumer Duty's four outcomes.
• Financial crime and data: money laundering, POCA reporting and tipping off, fraud, UK GDPR.
• Complaints and compensation: DISP time limits, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the FSCS.
• The advice framework: suitability, disclosure, remuneration and vulnerable customers.
• Ethics: integrity, conflicts of interest and professional standards.

Where candidates lose marks

• Naming Principle 6 or 7 for a retail customer: where the Consumer Duty applies, Principle 12 replaces them.
• Getting DISP timings wrong: 8 weeks for a final response, then 6 months to refer to the ombudsman.
• Using old ombudsman award limits: £455,000, or £205,000, for complaints referred from 1 April 2026.
• Telling a client a report has been made: tipping off carries up to 2 years in prison.

How to prepare

• Learn the four Consumer Duty outcomes and practise spotting which one a scenario tests.
• Make a one-page timeline of complaint and reporting deadlines.
• Practise the case studies under time pressure.

Walbrook sets the official syllabus and can change it. Check the current unit specification in your Brightspace account before you sit.