Differences of Opinion

Graduate of the U.S. naval Academy, motivational speaker and author Denis Waitley once said, “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat” and while I cannot dispute my failure to bring anyone to account for falsifying my mortgage application continually provides me with an education, the delays incurred by misinformation, ignorance and regulatory belligerence have repeatedly buried me in despair.

Over the years I have spoken to countless fellow victims, whistleblowers, financial journalists, debt consultants, financial regulators and solicitors as well as a plethora of FB friends and twitter users, all of whom have generously shared their expertise. Each nugget of information they have so generously imparted has been carefully stored in my numerous lever arch files, saved on my computer and crammed into my head. As a result, both my head and my computer are now low on memory and my office cupboards are fit to burst.

Yet still, despite my best efforts, there has been nothing to report which warrants even the loosest interpretation of success.

I have been thwarted at almost every turn by the pomposity and arrogance of those working for the collections and mortgage departments at HBOS. Instead of thoroughly investigating my mortgage mis-selling claim they chose misinformation and an unyielding reluctance to share information (information which they are required by law to provide) to deflect and delay my progress and towards an individual reporting mortgage fraud, the Financial Conduct Authority exhibits disinterest and thinly veiled disdain. The Financial Ombudsman Service was equally ineffectual. Not only did they display repeated instances of bungling incompetence which cost me nigh on two years in delays but they actively condoned HBOS’ obstructive behaviour to withhold information which was pivotal to my success.

Since reporting the fraudulent content of my mortgage application to the police last year, I have been told to seek legal advice and, in an effort to secure this, I have presented my case to six different law firms. While my initial approaches have all generated sufficient interest to prompt a request for further information, to date each firm has come back to me with a variety of inaccurate reasons for not wishing to proceed. Discovering that my unsolicited education in mortgage mis-selling has already furnished me with a level of expertise which now exceeds that of some professionals, has not only leftme despondent but my repeated failures to secure legal representation have cost me even more time in delays.

As a result, I now have only eight short months left to make my case before it is deemed statute barred. 

With no money to fund it and only the Fee Free Advice of my Local CAB to rely upon, I had all but given up hope of finding someone to take my mis-selling case to court. Writing further posts to chart my repeated failures seemed pointless, especially when the sole purpose of starting my Life after Debt blog was to raise awareness of ongoing banking criminality, become better informed and increase fellow banking victim's chances of success. However, after seven long years of in depth investigation (while simultaneously dealing with HBOS’ bullyboys) and writing 184 blog posts about each painful step along the way, it seems my determination might have finally paid off.

Thanks to a fellow victim of HBOS who made contact with me after reading my Soulless and Searching post ,I have today received the Terms of Engagement from a firm of lawyers who not only believe my case has merit but wish to take instruction on a no win no fee basis.  As time is short, they have already sent my documentary evidence to a London barrister who specialises in financial cases and mis-selling and I, along with several other HBOS victims in a similar predicament, await his opinion. 

I am nothing short of delighted.

Denis Waitley also said, “[Failure] is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing” and those who know me will doubtless agree that saying nothing, doing nothing and being nothing has never been one of my strong points. 

So, on the turn of a sixpence, I find my fingers are firmly crossed once again!

Truth and Understanding

Fourteenth century Italian physicist, mathematician, engineer, astronomer and philosopher Galileo Galilei once said, "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered: the point is to discover them” and although discovering the truth about my Bank of Scotland mortgage has consumed my life for the best part of six years, understanding what the truth actually adds up to has only come to light during the past week.

Since the Bank of Scotland secured a court order to repossess my home in November 2008, disposed of it at a knockdown price in April 2009 leaving me with a £217,000 shortfall and then flatly refused to consider our circumstances or discuss their breaches in best practice, I have been kept  very busy.

I have;

• Written countless letters to the FSA, the SRA, the FOS, the ICO, the Bank of Scotland, their debt collectors and the Bank of Scotland's CEO's Eric Daniels and Antonio Horta Osorio.
• Scoured FB, twitter and the newspapers for both information and expertise
• Used my 180 Life after Debt blog posts to find other individuals who have suffered at the hands of HBOS and in doing so secured more expertise

And,

• Compiled five lever arch files of evidence and information to support my case of complaint

This week, armed with all of the above, I have finally presented my findings to the police and, as a result of three phone calls to and from Action Fraud and the hour long telephone interview I gave, I have now been told the following;

• The crime I have reported is to be taken forward as an “Abuse of a position of trust”
• My mortgage application, which was falsified by a third party, ticks every box for mortgage fraud

And,

• As a result of my report, I must contact the Bank of Scotland once again.

To this end I wrote the following;

Dear Mr *******,

Mortgage Account No. ********-*/***/***

Crime Reference No.XXXX**********

Although you expressly stated in your letter of 24 July, “Any attempt to contact the Bank Of Scotland Plc (Halifax Division) regarding the above account will result in you being referred straight back to drysdenfairfax solicitors” , I have been asked by the police to advise the Bank of Scotland of the crime reference number I have been given for the mortgage fraud  I have reported to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (see above) and make the bank aware that it has also been the victim of the same mortgage fraud so it can file a report with Action Fraud as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

LAD

In addition, I am reliably informed that having a crime number will encourage an altogether different reaction to the one the Bank of Scotland has seen fit to mete out to me in the past. Furthermore, my much valued FB friends and Twitter followers expertise, combined with a few legal opinions a little closer to home, suggest the unlawful repossession of an individual’s home and a comprehensive paper trail to boot is pretty solid ground from which to pursue compensation.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the twentieth century, UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill, once said, “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is,” and, after six arduous years of searching for the truth, the Bank of Scotland boot  finally appears to be on the other foot and what's more,

The foot appears to be mine!

From Ashes to Ashes

Sixteenth century English poet, critic and writer Samuel Johnson once said, “Fraud and falsehood... dread examination. Truth invites it” and yet more than five years on since the near demise of HBOS, the long promised FSA/FCA investigation remains as elusive as the truth and the prosecution of those responsible.

Instead, some would have us believe the future is bright.

• Chief executive of Lloyds bank, Antonio Horta Osorio, says the ,“Hard work of the last two years has paid off”
• Chief executive of the FCA, Andrew Wheatley says, “New mortgage rules will hard wire common sense into mortgage lending”
• And Prime Minister David Cameron says the government is succeeding in “turning Britain around...and from the ashes of a great recession we are building a great revival”

However in stark contrast,

• Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has warned that Britain’s booming housing market represents the “biggest risk” to economic recovery.
• Lloyds PPI compensation bill has topped 8 billion with a further 750m set aside for future claims
• Financial Ombudsman Service figures reveal mortgage complaints are on the increase because more and more householders are unable to meet their commitments
• Analysts tell us PPI provision should no longer be classed as an “exceptional item” by UK banks as compensation claims for miss sold products are here to stay
• And,
• The Prime Minister’s brother, Alexander Cameron QC, along with Judge Anthony Leonard warned that the system of fair trials for some very high profile banking frauds are in jeopardy as a result of legal aid cut backs. They believe, “The public is entitled to expect that alleged victims have their complaints heard and defendants are given the chance to clear their names, not to mention the legitimate expectation that a government, which has talked tough on ensuring the appalling behavior of the financial sector is not repeated, delivers on its promises”.

For those who have paid the price of HBOS’ fraud and falsehood, the truth still falls a long way short of a revival and although Antonio Horta Osorio’s two years of hard work may well have “paid off” for him personally, for the vast majority of banking crisis victims, incomes (in real terms) have dropped, homes have been lost, austerity measures impact on every facet of their lives and legal assistance is even harder to access. Furthermore, while “new” mortgage rules may well reduce the number of miss sold mortgages in the future, they, along with the unsuprisingly similar “old rules”, remain nothing more than regulatory recommendations and, if the past truly is a reasonable indicator for the future, it would be fair to assume it is still just as unlikely there will not be much by way of consequence for those who continue to flout them. 

In truth the “ashes of the great recession” are very much part of  the landscape for the vast majority of us and not only do they fall a long way short of fuelling a revival, but instead they provide a harsh reminder of how little has changed for those who fiddled to secure immense returns while the UK economy burned. Furthermore, if the government and the regulators remain committed to endorsing criminal banking behavior with apathy, it will actively encourage the Antonio Horta Osario's of this world, their "hard working" executive offices and the toothless Financial Ombudsman Service to ignore the victims of the banking crisis too. Little wonder HBOS are unprepared to believe my six year old claim that my mortgage was arranged fraudulently or that my six week old request to supply me with further evidence to aid my case against their broker, even warrants a reply.

Influential English novelist, journalist and critic of social injustice Eric Arthur Blair, whose pen name was George Orwell, once said, “In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act” and I for one believe when it comes to HBOS, a much needed revolutionary act is long overdue.

Recipe for Disaster

Take three perfectly good financial products,

• One non status mortgage requiring no proof of income, a cautious valuation and client equity stake of 35%
• One 100% mortgage requiring no client equity stake, a cautious valuation but belt and braces proof of taxable income and affordability
• One 80% mortgage, a cautious valuation, belt and braces proof of taxable income and affordabilty offering discounted interest payments for the first two years

Add a large helping of political gain with nauseating proportions of deregulated bankster spin and mix well.

Throwing caution to the wind, allow evidence of income, equity and conservative valuations to float to the top, carefully remove and discard.

Using what is left, re-package as an innovative low risk mortgage product which will take the market by storm

Present finished article to the board in terms of anticipated personal returns and obtain consent to market.

Use highly incentivised bank staff to roll out new product to as many brokers and introducers as possible, turn a blind eye to their methods and pay all concerned on results

Insist all new applications are submitted online by the broker with declaration pages to follow after offer

Provide regulated mortgages of up to a 125% LTV having told brokers that applicants homes will not be valued conservatively and applicants incomes will not be verified.

Have your cake and eat it while watching with detached indifference for the cookies to crumble,

Leave the victims of widespread mortgage fraud to cook in their own juice,

And then, just like HBOS have done with my own case,

Wash hands thoroughly.

The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth

John F Kennedy once said, “The enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic” and, after five ineffectual years of mythical post crisis reform and regulation of the UK’s banking sector, the truth has not only failed to set me free but it has also failed to spark the Financial Ombudsman Service’s interest or ruffled a single untouchable HBOS  or Lloyds Banking Group feather.

In a last ditch attempt to persuade the dismissive and the disinterested of my sincerity, I have, over the past two weeks, implemented the following;

• Prepared, sworn under oath and sent a statutory declaration to the FOS reiterating my claim that the mortgage application my broker submitted on line in 2006 contained false information which I did not supply.
• Sent HBOS’ customer services department my eight page letter of complaint because, contrary to my expectations, the FOS declined to ask HBOS to comment on its contents as part of the complaints process
• Simultaneously written to Lloyds Banking Group customer services, Lloyds Group Chief Executive Officer Antonia Horta Osario and Lloyds Group Chief Risk Officer Executive Juan Colombas, stating,

“Following the final decision from the FOS on 10 February 2014 it is now my opinion that the contract entered into in 2006 with the Bank of Scotland by myself and my husband is null and void. This is because it did not conform to due process and it was granted on false information which was supplied fraudulently by [a broker] and then negligently verified by HBOS’s underwriters M**** ******, S** ****** and J** ******.

As a result of the Ombudsman’s findings, together with information gleaned from a Data Subject Access Request, I am now of the opinion that I need to make a new complaint.

Yours faithfully”

Life After Debt

And,

• In an effort to understand the consequences a regulated  lender might suffer if they were found not to have complied with FCA rules, spoken at length with the FCA consumer helpline about my case.

As a result of my endeavours I have been advised;

• The FOS have received my “letter” and attached it to my file. There is no mention of them changing their plans to publish the ombudsman’s ruling on my case on their website
• HBOS’ Customer Services are unprepared to discuss my case any further and can only refer me back to the FOS’s recent ruling
• HBOS’ Executive team are in receipt of my letter of complaint, it is very important to them and they will be responding to it shortly 

And the Financial Conduct Authority informs me;

• The FOS are not empowered to rule or comment on cases of fraud
• HBOS are duty bound by FCA rules to prove beyond reasonable doubt they took adequate measures during the underwriting of my mortgage to verify the information contained in my application was true
• FCA rules run parallel to the law but, as guidelines, are not legally binding. Lenders are not required to keep compliance documentation for more than a year and the FCA, having asked for full details of the alleged perpetrators, strongly recommend I report my findings to Action Fraud or the police.

Thankfully, the tireless support, diligence and expertise of my FB friends has now put the latter very much in hand. 

Nineteenth century German born philosopher and author Arthur Schopenhauer believed, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second, it is violently opposed and third, it is accepted as being self-evident”. All I can now hope for is that, after six excruciating years of ridicule and violent opposition, the truth may finally become self evident in the hands of the Serious Fraud Office.

After all, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi;

 “Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.” 

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.

Loss and Losses

Best known for his ironic and well plotted novels examining class, turn of the twentieth century English novelist Edward Morgan Forster once said, “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us” and in October 2008 this is precisely what my family and I were forced to do.

• I let go of my home when HBOS forced its sale
• I let go of our livelihood when my husband’s business bank went into administration,

And,

• I let go of my financial future when I discovered a million pounds worth of unsecured debt.

As a result of this,

• I let go of my pride in always having paid my way,
• I let go of the friends who could not endure the knowledge of our indebtedness and
• I let go of any hope of ever affecting a recovery.

In the years that followed I lost, my financial reputation, my hair and my confidence and the life which was waiting for me definitely was not the one I would ever have chosen.

Over the past three months alone I have also let go of,

• My car under the terms of voluntary surrender
• Our Spanish apartment now it has been seized by the bank and,
• A fair amount of my time now my eighty six year old mother has become increasingly dependent on me.

However, while “letting go” has naturally been fraught with grief for I life I no longer have, the life which was waiting for me has also delivered some unexpected rewards.

• The kindness shown by those who continue to come to my aid has been nothing short of astounding
• The written word in the form of my comments and my blog has not only given me access to expertise but provided me with the voice I longed for and,
• The product of my hard work, focus and bloody minded determination has not only encouraged infamous banking giants and their regulators to sit up and take notice but from time to time it has even made them squirm!

Retired four star general and American statesman Colin Luther Powell once said, “A dream does not become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work” and although I continue to wait, without patience, for my un-redacted HBOS file there are I now days when I dare to dream all that will be required of me to let go of in the future is the mortgage shortfall debt these infamous banksters chose to create and saddle me with over the past five excruciating years.

This is the life I have planned for and this is the life I sincerely hope is waiting for me.

Fates and Futility

Democratic US senator and noted civil rights activist Robert F. Kennedy once said, “ First is the danger of futility: the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills-against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world’s great movements... have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protest Reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World and a 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal so, with these commendable achievements already in the bag, how hard can it be to bring a few bankers to task?

Deemed “woefully unsound” by MP Andrew Tyrie and the parliamentary commission on banking standards, one might easily assume shirking ones fiduciary duty, turning a blind eye to money laundering, manipulating Libor rates, hard selling inappropriate toxic products and cooking the books to maximise their remunerations  might prove sufficient to bring about the sternest of criminal charges. However, for a gang of HBOS untouchables, the consequence of wreaking havoc with the UK economy and leaving widespread hardship in their wake have been nothing if not “alternative” in their nature.

Indentified by the FSA as far back as 2003 as an“accident waiting to happen” and led by just a few high ranking individuals who chose to use ineffectual financial regulation, a gullible government and the most malleable of auditors to promote “growth at any price", the HBOS three road rough shod over all who stood in their way for many a year. Blinded by greed and self importance they chose to ignore reports of fraud and warnings of dangerously high levels of risk and instead bullied, threatened and dismissed those who spoke out. As a result their “colossal failures” have cost 921 million in fallen share values, 20 billion in tax payer bailouts, 35,000 in in-house job losses and the repossession of countless homes and small businesses.

To date the personal cost to those responsible has been nothing more than a smattering of token fines, some nominal sessions of naming and shaming and a sprinkling of bad press.

HBOS chairman Lord Dennis “cuckoo land” Stevenson, who enjoyed more than £815,000 per anum for a role he viewed as part time, was indignant he should be required to step down from his chairmanly duties despite being found to be either “deluded or dishonest” for the part he played in concealing HBOS’s imminent collapse. However, he has continued to enjoy a variety of roles in well remunerated employment within the financial services industry by miraculously side stepping a ban from holding a directorship or working in the city and does not currently face any criminal proceedings.

Former HBOS chief executive James Crosby (2004-2006), who infamously bred a culture of dismissal for those who opposed his risk management views, chose to return his knighthood for services to banking and, after much pressure, volunteered a reduction of 30% to his £572,000 indexed annual pension. However, the millions he reaped in HBOS share options (two thirds of which he sold just before the bank’s collapse) along with his equally sizable bonuses have remain unencumbered. After his HBOS departure, he was not only offered, and accepted, the deputy chairmanship of the FSA but took up a number of lucrative positions on various boards because, despite widespread public outrage, he too faced no ban or criminal charges.

Boardroom brawling HBOS Chief executive Andy Hornby (2006-2009), who may well have found “the die was cast and it was too late for him to make any significant change" to avoid disaster, not only managed to avoid financial forfeiture for concealing (with the help of his KPMG auditors) 47 billion in HBOS losses before their LLoyds takeover but also managed to benefit from a “change of control payment” on his departure. Paid for by the tax payers bailout, he took £251,000 in cash and 2051 shares on top of his salary, his pension contributions, his awards in lieu of pension and his redundancy payments. Since then he has enjoyed the most senior of roles with both Boots and Coral, without a whisper of prosecution over his HBOS conduct.

Gordon Brown confessed, "I should have done more to prevent the banking crisis," and David Cameron assures us he "will make sure the banking crisis will not happen again”. However, while Downing Street continues to allow the bankster conscience to dictate their fates rather than their crimes, it is little wonder I who have battled with the untouchable Halifax Bank of Scotland for almost five years, have been unable to acquire an un-redacted version of each and every piece of information held on my HBOS file in order to progress my Financial Ombudsman Service case of complaint.

  

US novelist and former financial trader, Philipp Meyer once said, “"Give a small number of people the power to enrich themselves beyond everyone's wildest dreams, a philosophical rationale to explain all the damage they're causing, and they will not stop until they've run the world economy off a cliff" and while our government and their regulators prefer to endorse the calculation of capital as a solution to the banking crisis instead of prosecuting the banksters grossly inappropriate corporate conduct, all we can expect globally, nationally and individually is...

A whole lot more of the same. 

Learning Difficulties

First Viscount Saint Alban, philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist and author, Francis bacon once said," It's not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong: not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich: not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned: and not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity" and although I have drawn strength from words such as these throughout each and every excruciating year spent in the ruthless jaws of the Halifax Bank of Scotland, I suspect for the vast majority of those I am forced to deal with, strength of resolve, fair practice and  integrity occupy a negligible space among their tasks in hand  and  this week’s correspondence has offered  little opportunity to think otherwise.

Following receipt of  the Financial Ombudsman Service’s confirmation  that my miss selling case has been accepted  and  is now awaiting allocation  to an adjudicator, I have  requested a copy of  every single document relating to my Bank of Scotland  mortgage from the following organisations.

• The solicitor who conveyed my mortgage
• The Bank of Scotland archive
• The surveyors  instructed to value my property
• The mortgage broker who introduced our application to HBOS

Excited in anticipation of the information my actions might afford me, I was delighted to find my solicitor happily agreed to put the matter in hand immediately and, in spite of a history of reluctance to assist in my compliant,  I am equally pleased to report HBOS have agreed  to furnish me with the information I require by 1 April.

Both the surveyors and the broker have not.

Much to my astonishment, not only have I discovered the surveyors instructed to value my home were salaried HBOS employees, but because of a specific instruction by the Bank of Scotland at the time of application  stating I should not be supplied with the valuation, these same HBOS employees remain unwilling to part with any information  now. Furthermore, the broker who placed our £790,000 mortgage with HBOS in 2006, and by so doing earned himself a healthy £4,000 fee, now regrets they are unable to supply copies of documents relating to my mortgage application because their regulators do not require them to keep records for this length of time.

As my recently acquired advocate and I smell a rat, I have written to the Financial Services Authority to ask for their comments on the mortgage brokers letter. I now wait with interest to learn the outcome.

American novelist and author Lloyd Alexander said, “We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and  not finding it than from  learning the answer itself” and  while some continue to  seek answers which negate bonus caps and others prefer profits to serve the greater good, I plan to practice the art of asking questions of HBOS because I am convinced  it is as organisation where fraud  has come naturally and because of this I am now paying the price.

Whitewash and Christmas

Former United States Presidential Candidate, three times governor of Colorado and lawyer, Richard Lamm, once said, “Christmas is a time when kids tell adults what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it” yet despite four long years in the grips of a global financial crisis it remains an unwelcome fact that both adults and kids are still paying the price of a banking crisis deficit which lined our banksters pockets with millions while their regulators condoned and excuse them.

During the past year we have been encouraged to believe 2012 was to be the year in which regulation and banking reform would finally make a difference.

•    Martin Wheatley, managing director of the FSA said,

“CEO’s are ultimately accountable for the way their staff are incentivised, so we expect them to take a real interest in fixing this [and] we have made sure the firms where we found failings are fixing their incentive schemes, improving governance and controls and, in the worst cases, checking past sales to identify if mis-selling has occurred.”

•     Andy Haldane, executive director of financial stability at the Bank of England said,

“The occupy movement has been successful in its efforts to popularise the problems of the global financial system for one simple reason : they are right” and “policy makers like me will need [their] support in delivering radical change” while this “quiet but unmistakable leaf is being turned” by our bankers.

•     Danny Alexander, UK Treasury chief secretary said,   

     What I want to see is [banking reform] recommendations made quickly so that we can get on and implement them, which is, I think what the people of this country want to see".

    

    However, despite encouraging words, the talk of 2012  proved cheap and instead of our banking fraternity calculating the prospects of repaying their ill gotten gains, it is only EU threats to cap their remunerations to a modest couple of million which have captured their undivided attention while, in complete contrast to the lifestyle afforded the favored few who waged economic war on the masses, the victims of their banking crimes continue to endure,

• Widespread and economically damaging unemployment  
• Austerity measures which have cost the average family more than twenty pounds a week
• Possession order applications against UK homes filed, on average, every two and half minutes

Insisting “we are all in this together” Prime Minister David Cameron said, 

“ It takes time to recover and we've got to do more. We’re going to do more. We’re going to roll up our sleeves and do everything possible to get business going in Britain, to get housing going, to get jobs going.”

However, if Andrew Bailey, chief executive designate of the Prudential Regulatory Authority’s words are to be believed, nothing could be further from the truth. Without a shadow of a doubt it appears,

•    Some banks are just too big to fail
•    Some banks are just too big to jail

And unlike the rest of society,

•    Some bankers enjoy carte blanche to operate outside the law 

Benjamin Franklin once said, “A good conscience is a continual Christmas” and while I cannot pretend my four years of fighting and two years of complaining to the FOS about HBOS  is in any way reminiscent of an eternal Christmas, I cannot help but wonder how those responsible for the avarice and arrogance which brought about levels of widespread hardship likened only to that of a world war have, despite all corporate, governmental and regulatory attempts to whitewash their crimes, enjoyed the festive traditions of proffering goodwill to all men or the peace of a good conscience during the fourth Christmas of this ongoing economic crisis.

Guilt and Weakness

German born theoretical physicist, Albert Einstein, once said, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot more courage, to move in the opposite direction” however when it comes to regulating our errant bankers or taking them to task for their crimes, it appears genius and courage are not to be called on. I am certain it is because of this that my dealings with the Financial Ombudsman Service continue to make little progress.

Following a full review of my file, a process which took a further three weeks, I am now told,

·        The FOS do not accept they are guilty of giving an unresponsive HBOS countless opportunities to discard my case on jurisdiction grounds whilst simultaneously hounding me for instant replies in order to be “fair to the business”.

·        The FOS do not accept they are guilty of unnecessarily asking me to collate my case in detail, despite declining it on grounds of jurisdiction after weeks of preparatory work, nineteen months later

·        The FOS do not accept they are guilty of favouring HBOS despite a period of nine months with no progress from the time I lodged my over-valuation complaint

However, in complete contrast to the tone of the majority of their letter I am also told,

·        The FOS sincerely apologise for their lack of diligence with regard to securing an HBOS response to my over valuation complaint. 

Mildly encouraged by this minor step forward yet resigned to the inevitability of endless waiting, I can only conclude the FOS's lack of impetus in this instance is not merely oversight due to unprecedented levels of complaints but is instead an endemic reluctance to tackle the UK's bankers and an clear indication of their discomfort at the prospect of unearthing another bankster miss-selling (or rather sub-prime overselling) scandal.  For this reason it is no surprise to hear,

•        Royal Bank of Scotland feel justified in their lobbying for legislative changes to enable them to repossess properties with distressed mortgages more quickly
•        The FSA are happy to risk more subrime selling by formally relaxing capital and liquidity rules for UK banks
•         While Martin Wheatley believes widespread miss-selling is a far cry from theft

With mounting evidence to suggest economic reform, financial regulation and banking prosecutions will amount to nothing more substantial than an after dinner speech, it seems the new chairman of the British Bankers Association, Sir Nigel Wicks, is correct in saying “we must all take personal responsibility for the restoration of trust in banking”. His words could not ring truer now that it is abundantly clear the restoration of trust in our bankers is to have nothing to do with the genius of our regulators and has even less to do with the courage of our Financial Ombudsman Service.

Albert Einstein also said, “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character” and I suspect this is precisely what errant bankers are counting on to escape prosecution for their crimes. I hasten to add weakness of attitude and weakness of character is not what the Halifax Bank of Scotland or the Financial Ombudsman Service can expect to encounter in their dealings with me.

Tales of the Unexpected

American writer and humorist Marcelene Cox once said, “A vacation frequently means that the family goes away for a rest, accompanied by a mother who sees that the others get it” and for me the long wet school summer holidays have been no exception.

Over the past two months I have,

·        Cooked, cleaned and laundered for a household which has, on occasion, swelled to include an extra dozen people.

·        Escorted, dispatched and collected anything up to six passengers at any one time for delivery to a variety of destinations.

·        Shopped, chopped and packed vast quantities of picnic food for children, grandchildren and a full complement of adults.

·        Trawled, surfed, scrutinised and visited a plethora of venues to amuse both visiting family members and our offspring.

I have also,

·        Purchased and sewn fifty name tapes into my daughter’s new school uniform.

·        Made countless visits to my eighty five year old mother.

·        Assumed the role of appropriate adult for innumerable sight tests, dental checks and haircuts.

·        Sourced, priced and pondered over inordinated volumes of second hand English and Creative writing books for my sons university reading list.

·        Read, researched and commented on numerous articles exploring the ongoing global financial crisis

And,

·        Written, posted and tweeted several pieces for my Life After Debt blog.

However, because family commitments have pushed me close to the point of overload during the past nine weeks, I have not, until now, registered there has been a great deal I haven’t done.

I have not,

·        Endured repeated demands for payment from our creditors

·        Written a single letter concerning our precarious financial predicament

And nor have I,

·        Received a long overdue response from Lloyds Banking Group, HBOS or the Financial Ombudsman’s Service adjudicator with regard to my over valuation complaint.

Grateful, in some respects, to have been free of all debt fighting angst throughout the school break, it has not, however, been a summer without results.

I have,

·        Received many supportive and constructive comments on my posts

·        Acquired a mounting number of new Life After Debt followers every week

·        Had my Great Expectations post retweeted by several readers including Occupy Wall Street

And,

·        Been invited by Huffington Post Live to discuss LIBOR manipulation with former Minister of Labour for the Clinton administration, Robert Reich.

Like Marcelene Cox I believe, “No one knows his true character until he has run out of gas, purchased something on the instalment plan and raised an adolescent” and as one who has already raised my fair share of adolescents while simultaneously dealing with a million pounds worth of unpaid instalment plans, I am amazed to discover not only have I been heard on both sides of the Atlantic but my previous efforts have self fuelled during a period when my personal reserves were close to empty.

Here’s hoping “true character” might eventually reap similar success in my hitherto fruitless communications with the banksters at HBOS.

But,

As ever, I shall not be holding my breath.