Ridiculous Solutions

Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor and astronomer Archimedes of Syracuse once said. “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it and I shall move the world” and, despite an HBOS penchant for obstructiveness, I, like Archimedes I am still hoping a little leverage, along with the evidential support from my HBOS Data Subject Access Request will eventually produce some world moving success of my own.

The Liberty Guide to Human Rights states “if information about you is held by your doctor, by your bank, by a credit reference agency, by your employer or by the tax-man, the likelihood is that it will be [available to you under the rules of a Data Subject Access Request because it is deemed to be] your personal data”. This extends to “personal data where it is processed to learn or record something about that individual or where the processing of that information has impact on that individual”. However, much to my own consternation and that of my Financial Ombudsman Service adjudicator, it has proved extremely difficult to acquire all the HBOS documentation relating to my mortgage miss selling case.

Eleven weeks have passed since I was allocated an FOS adjudicator to investigate my complaint and I am still waiting for HBOS to provide me with the following information,

•           Full details of the valuation undertaken for mortgage purposes on 26.4.06 by Colley’s Surveyors.
•          Confirmation of who was responsible for overseeing the processing  of my mortgage (as the file notes I have received so far say my broker was removed from the panel during its underwriting).
•          The reason my broker was removed from the panel in the first place
•          Copies of all of  the HBOS and broker’s compliance check sheets associated with my mortgage application
• .      A full copy of the HBOS and broker Fact Find which supported my application.
• .      Copies of all documentary evidence supplied by our accountant
• .      An explanation as to why, according to my screen notes, my application was eligible for a maximum loan of £1,260,050 when my home supposedly enjoyed a risk assessment value of £925,000 and our application was for a remortgage amounting to £795,000.
• .      A full copy of HBOS’ contracted solicitors file for my conveyance

And

• .      The identity of the individual who was responsible for underwriting and signing off my remortgage in May 2006.

Anxious to expedite matters, I rang HBOS to solicit a more immediate reply.

I was told,

·         The incomplete copy of my file should not have been sent out without fully addressing my requests
·         My questions would be answered (or declined depending on whether or not they are deemed to be personal data) within 14 days

And, (seemingly totally unaware of the fact that the DSAR team have already ready sent me the names of at least three people who worked on the underwriting of my remortgage)

·         I will never be provided with the names of the individuals who underwrote my mortgage as this would constitute a breach of HBOS’ employee Duty of Care.

Keen to keep the Financial Ombudsman Service abreast of the situation in general I wrote to my adjudicator and was informed,

·         I have already had eleven weeks grace to provide additional evidence
·         The FOS must be fair to both parties at all times,
·         To provide me with a further extension to gather evidence would be unfair to HBOS and
·         If I have not received the evidence I am waiting for before 28 June, the FOS investigation into my complaint is likely to proceed without it.

Greatly disturbed by the dubious logic of my adjudicators comments, I replied with the following,

“Dear Financial Ombudsman Service Adjudicator,

Thank you for explaining to me how things work and I understand my case cannot drag on indefinitely and nor would I wish it to. 

In an effort to expedite matters, earlier today and before I received your email, I spoke to the DSAR team at HBOS who apologized for agreeing to send me information and then not acting on it. Today they have assured me, once again, they will reply within 14 days with regard to the information I have asked for. Thankfully they have also offered to help secure my files from their contracted surveyor Colley's and their contracted solicitors Pathways Residential Mortgages as they say this information should have been available to me in the first place. According to **** **** on the HBOS DSAR team, contracted surveyors and solicitors often misunderstand that the individual is entitled to have sight of their own files.

Although I appreciate you must make sure you are fair to both sides and 11 weeks is a long time to wait for me to supply additional evidence, I believe the fact that I have been unsuccessfully requesting this evidence from HBOS for much more than 11 weeks is in itself unfair. I am now very worried to hear you may well have to proceed with my case on the 28 June regardless of whether or not HBOS have fulfilled my request for valuation and conveyance information. I believe progressing your investigation without all the evidence will only serve to disadvantage my own case of complaint while actively encouraging HBOS to drag their feet in the future and this is not fair to me.

I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that I am more than happy to collate and send the further evidence I spoke of as quickly I can, once I have received, it but sadly the time frame still rests firmly in the hands of the HBOS DSAR team.

I do very much appreciate where you are coming from but hope you won't mind me pointing this out.

Yours sincerely”

Life After Debt

The Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland once said, ““If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would” and,  if the results of last week’s communications with both HBOS and the Financial Ombudsman Service are a measure by which to assess them, it appears that in the world of the Financial Ombudsman Service and that of the HBOS Data Subject Access Request team, the logic is precisely the same.

Nevertheless, I have no alternative but to I await their replies.

Awakenings

I remember reading somewhere there are no limits to an individual’s fascination for themselves and with this in mind I find myself wondering if it is a self-obsession which drives me to continue to blog about my life. Having given this concept some consideration, I have come to the conclusion my motivation has less to do with me than it has to do with my determination to piece my family's life back together. In the last week two things have happened which have made me feel I might, at last, be making some headway in this respect.

The first was a conversation with Ian Fraser whose supportive words gave me a very welcome sign  my rantings on the subject of the Bank of Scotland have been heard. It was an encouraging indication I might have finally acquired a voice and it offered me hope of eventually being more than a mere whisper to a hand full of much valued friends.

The other major development was my husband not only mustered a smiled in my direction but also initiated several conversations with me which were not about the weather. Any attempt at meaningful conversation on his part recently is a huge breakthrough in what has amounted to a debt related marital silence which has lasted for more than two and a half years. I am not sure what has instigated this subtle move from cool to slightly warm but I know he was asked a question by my twelve year old daughter which might have been the catalyst.

She simply wanted know if he loves me and it is my suspicion it may well be this very question, asked in childish innocence which has promoted a shift in his overall disposition. This, along with his awareness now, unlike any other time during our seventeen year marriage, I am either tapping away on my computer or engaged in a variety of activities which are totally independent of him. Perhaps these small changes in me have at last awakened a realisation some interactive effort is required on both sides if he wishes to remain a presence in my life. Who knows what has prompted this change in my husband but whatever the motivation, a little bit of long awaited warmth has been a pleasing occurrence.

So, with these two developments firmly in mind I continue to be hopeful my perceptions are real and not instead illusions which all too often collide with reality only to be dashed to pieces again along with my expectations.

Never-ending stories

Now I have actually started looking, I have come across many reported stories of the unscrupulous dealings of banking institutions. However it is clear, the Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB take the biscuit every time. I can say this with conviction because I have personally fallen foul of their penchant for persecuting the poor. We are now completely penniless as a direct consequence of their irresponsible lending spree together with a "come what may" attitude to their administrative obligations.

When, in October 2008, I discovered my unenviable financial position it did not occur to me to look for legislation and court rulings made in favour of women in similar circumstances. At the time my life was in tatters and so was I. More recently, I have had both the time and the inclination to explore these avenues and in so doing have unearthed barrister Richard Colbey's article in the Telegraph in 2001.

Mr Colbey talks of a House of Lords ruling which has given the wives of businessmen a right to their share of the equity in their homes. This has come about because it is recognises spouses are in danger of being coerced, by their partners and their mortgage lenders, into agreeing to family homes being taken as security to raise funds for their husband's businesses. Richard Colbey says the courts are to follow the House of Lords' ruling putting the onus on the lender to make sure a husband and wife take separate independent legal advice when taking out, or increasing, a mortgage on a family's main residence if funds are to be raised for non residential purposes. This precaution ensures neither borrower unknowingly finds themselves in a position where they could lose their home in an attempt to support a spouse's business. Richard Colbey says, "In future, lenders who hope to be able to rely on mortgage deeds signed by a wife will have to prove she was seen by a solicitor who was not acting for the bank or her husband before they can repossess the whole property."

There are two areas of concern which apply to me;

Firstly, at the time of signing our mortgage document, I was not advised by the Bank of Scotland to seek any legal advice independently and separately from my husband and the mortgage company. This does not surprise me in the slightest as this nonchalant view the Bank of Scotland have of co-signing spouses has been evident throughout my dealings with them. When, unbeknown to me, the arrears on our mortgage started to build up, the Bank of Scotland made no attempt to contact me personally. This neglect directly resulted in the loss of our family home because the Bank of Scotland denied me an opportunity, at the start of any problems, to rectify the situation.

In addition, the Bank of Scotland unashamedly excluded me from all debt counselling conversations they had with my husband through our difficulties. They even levied a charge of £100 for a final debt counselling consultation which my husband was supposed to have had when neither of us was even in the country. The Bank of Scotland says they based their decision to repossess our lovingly restored sixteenth century home of ten years on the findings of this consultation. On enquiring why I was not included in any discussions at any stage, the Bank of Scotland said, "it was not their responsibility to make sure husband and wife communicate" and in the case of a married couple, they believe speaking to one person is enough. They stated in most cases where there are arrears, it is unusual for either borrower to want to speak to their lender in the first place and because of this statistic they had no reason to believe I would be any different. I was, and still am, outraged at this laissez faire attitude to joint and severally liable spouses on Bank of Scotland mortgages.

Secondly;

If this House of Lord's ruling was in place and being reported in 2001 why was I rail-roaded by the Bank of Scotland and the courts in November 2008 into thinking I had no grounds on which to halt the repossession process? I was in touch with the Bank of Scotland several times a week from 2 October 2008 trying to explain my predicament in an attempt to explore all the options. However, the Bank of Scotland insisted, other than making full monthly interest payments immediately, as well as offering a substantial monthly sum via a payment arrangement towards paying off the arrears, I had no alternative other than agree to sell at a forced sale value unless I wished be repossessed. As my husband had not found employment at that stage, I agreed to sign their power of sale terms. The Bank of Scotland insisted the court case go ahead and, in November 2008, the judge ruled in support of the Bank of Scotland's application for a repossession order. If I did not remain in agreement to the forced sale of my home, the order was to come into effect on 5 January 2009 and give the Bank of Scotland the power to proceed with a repossession. The Bank of Scotland valued our home for mortgage purposes in May 2006 at £925,000 and it was sold, under duress, for £245,000 less in April 2009 for a mere £665,000 creating a £217,000 shortfall.

I can see now my sorry tale is just another example of the compassionless lending policies employed by the Bank of Scotland. It can be added to the ever increasing list of the Bank of Scotland's unashamed and callous attitude towards their customers, their investors and their shareholders. Along with the Reading scandal which is reported in depth in BBC reporter and journalist Ian Fraser's article, it is yet another example of a directive which has been rolled out by HBOS executives to push high risk lending out to small businesses regardless of the cost to the families of those concerned.

When the Bank of Scotland's commercial risk backfired, unlike the many other lenders I have had dealings with, they have happily laid the blame at somebody else's door expecting the individual concerned, the tax payer, the investor and no doubt anyone else they can think of to pay the price.
As well as a catalogue of offences in Ian Fraser's report HBOS the Worst Bank in the World, the Bank of Scotland's attitude to selling money in this irresponsible manner has legitimised a greed for the massive introductory fees that go hand in hand with the marketing of high risk lending. The fees which were generated from placing our mortgage with the Bank of Scotland in May 2006 were £3,931.25 to the introducer plus an additional £699.00 which the Bank of Scotland awarded themselves. These figures do not include any commissions earned by selling supporting life assurance and repayment vehicles both of which can add thousands to the introducer's financial remuneration.

Sadly, I continue to be advised although I probably do have a case against the Bank of Scotland, it will cost £40,000 to bring it to court. No doubt the knowledge of the dire financial circumstances  many of their victims now face, allows the Bank of Scotland to continue with their persecution of the poor, safe in the knowledge as individuals we will not have the means with which to make them answerable for their dirty dealings whether they be in Reading, or in the sleepy back water I once used to call home.