Guilty Secrets

One hundred years ago Theodore Roosevelt said, “Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people” and as I catch up on my reading with the blogs of journalist Ian Fraser and Stop HBOS campaigner Nicolette Turner, I am provided with yet more evidence to support Roosevelt’s statement.

It appears that Thames Valley Police’s plan to limit their enquiries into the HBOS Reading scandal means they will not be investigating any high level corporate involvement of former HBOS executives despite ongoing allegations of in house fraud at board level. While victims of the HBOS Reading scandal are naturally up in arms about this decision, ex- HBOS risk management executive and whistle-blower Paul Moore has expressed additional concerns at the way LLoyds Bank is responding to this investigation.

Moore said,” I have even been told by very reliable sources that Lloyds Banking Group is not voluntarily offering to help the police with their enquiries. If this is so, it is scandalous. This alleged fraud is a matter of extreme public importance and interest and it is vital that parliament keeps very close eye on how the police and the FSA are doing their jobs and working together with what is going on, through the Treasury Select Committee and the Justice Committee.”

As ever, when it comes to power and money, smoke and mirrors seem to be the first line of defense.  Learning that at least fifty five people have lost their livelihoods along with their companies, as a result of the dishonesty within HBOS, I can’t help wondering how I am ever going to harvest any success in my battle with Lloyds and HBOS myself.  Nicolette Turner and her fellow victims of the HBOS Reading fraud have fought for years with very little success in spite of police involvement and repeatedly lobbying both past and present governments for help.

Today I took two of my children for an eye test and when my ten year old son, always ready with an impromptu question, asked the optician,” What is the most disgusting thing you have ever seen?”  I found myself searching for a subject that would sit at the top of my own “most disgusting” leader board.  I concluded the following,

·        Self-indulgence to the detriment of others

·        Absence of integrity

·        Not taking responsibility for ones actions

In the words of Theodore Roosevelt’s niece Eleanor, “In the long run we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends and the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” As the wife of an individual whose business failed due to the economic climate and the simultaneous demise of both Heritable Bank and the property development market I am, according to HBOS, supposed to accept that I am jointly and severely liable for the choices my husband made even though HBOS aided my husband’s decision to keep me financially in the dark.

However, when it comes to Lloyds and HBOS executives, it is evident that they are totally unprepared to embrace their responsibilities with integrity and are pleading that they shouldn’t be held responsible because, allegedly, they were, like me, kept in the dark and unaware of what was going on within their bank. Even though this outrageous double standard is both elitist and downright unfair, there appears to be no governing body prepared to make these "untouchables" accountable. Because of this, social justice is unlikely ever to be attained and the greater good is destined to remain second place to the indulgences of the high ranking corporate individual.

      This I find truly disgusting.

Debts and rubber ducks

Why is it some people, finding they do not know the answer to the question you have asked, simply make up questions they can answer in order to give a reply? I have just spent twenty minutes on the telephone to someone within the debt advisory services who has chosen to do just that. My difficulties seem to arise because I am quite often more knowledgeable than the people from whom I can afford to seek expertise yet I still feel it is necessary to take advice because I don't feel knowledgeable enough to be confident in my decision making without have a sounding board.

This morning’s frustrations have stemmed from my Heritable Hero’s offer to “encourage” the Bank of Scotland to accept an Individual Voluntary Arrangement. This IVA would include my husband’s remaining personal creditors of £73,000, business creditors of £75,000, together with some non hostile credit card debt which is not being pursued as well as our mortgage shortfall of £217,000. Heritable Bank have already agreed to write off our shortfall of £209,000 but have suggested, as an alternative, I consider whether it would be beneficial for me to use Heritable’s offer to force my hostile creditors (Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, Nat West, MBNA, Abbey National, Cahoot and Capital One) into accepting an IVA. This will not require a monetary outlay, but instead could be a method by which to render them powerless to pursue me.

While putting an end to the financial pressure is a very attractive proposition, I desperately feel the need for an expert to go through the nuts and bolts of it with me so I can make an informed decision.  My layman’s understanding of the rulings are that as long as 75% of my creditors agree, I can pay whatever is acceptable to them (rubber ducks was one suggestion) and be home and dry without any more postal panic, doorstep claw hammer threats or armed police responses ever again.

But is this the best course of action for me to take right now?

With this question in mind I made National Debt Line my first stop.  After updating my financial fact find and fending off the advisor’s urges to launch into a discussion on bankruptcy with me, I was told I could not consider an IVA without doing an income and expenditure analysis to assess my disposable income. When I explained  they had completely lost sight of the fact I may well be paying in rubber ducks, their rather shirty reply was this was not the normal way to approach an IVA and it was their opinion most people would look at something in the region of twenty pence in the pound.

Having finally got him to accept rubber ducks were precisely the kind of IVA both I and Heritable Bank had in mind, he had to concede this was indeed, technically, a possibility but felt it was imperative I go on hold while they checked with their legal department whether it would be possible for Heritable Bank to make me do this!  It took me several minutes more to convince him nobody was attempting to force me to pay them in rubber ducks, or anything else for that matter.  Finally, broken and confused, but still trying to save face, my advisor agreed to allow me to ask him my question.

“Now you are in possession of all the facts,” I said, “is this a feasible way forward for me right now?”

Of course his answer was, “I couldn’t possibly answer a question of this kind. You will have to ask an insolvency practitioner but remember you will have to pay.”

I have always been aware that the odds of going into a supermarket for a loaf of bread and coming out with just a loaf of bread are three billion to one.  I had foolishly hoped that National Debt Line would have at least allowed me my loaf of bread but I suppose I shouldn't have been looking at a bakery for pearls of wisdom. 

Heritable Heroes

As I sit writing in the comfortable warmth of my kitchen while listening to a Beatles CD, I have one eye on my twelve year old daughter who is dancing with gleeful abandon while singing along enthusiastically.  Always delighted to see evidence of how untouched my children are by our ongoing financial traumas, I find myself further smiling at the start of Paperback Writer as I am reminded of a recent conversation with my business mortgage manager in which his words of encouragement were, on this occasion, about my writing abilities.

Aware of the saying that kindness can never be wasted, I had never ever envisaged I would be using a bank as an example of the extent of this human kindness. After all, I like so many others within the financial services industry believed it common knowledge a bank has no heart. However, having used the past forty one blogging opportunities to slate the majority of the banking community, I thought it timely to share the experience I have had at the hands of my business bank Heritable who have, in all their dealings with me, been all heart.

After the “Grand Opening” on 1 October 2008 I was forced by circumstance, over the space of little more than an hour, to redefine my role as contented middle class, stay-at-home housewife and mother, to become not only a "One a Woman Debt fighting machine", but a management consultant for a deficit of a million pounds and a "Bank Battler" extraordinaire. My sixty minutes of letter opening had revealed that, as well as a large house with more than two hundred thousand pounds of negative equity and four hundred and forty six thousand pounds of credit card debt, our property development company, which enjoyed limited liability negated by directors guarantees, had two half built assets of dubious value. Unbeknown to me and at the very same as I was licking my wounds on the discovery of my own impossible financial situation in the comfort of my soon to be repossessed sixteenth century home, our business bankers Heritable, were doing precisely the same thing in their London offices with the help of their Administrators.

Now, nearly two and a half years on, and in complete contrast to the actions of the Bank of Scotland, Heritable Bank have done everything within their power to help me make something of our company’s business assets. Sadly, the flaunting of planning regulations on my husband’s part  combined with a recession fuelled fall in property prices dictated circumstances were against us from the outset. In spite of both my and the banks combined efforts, our company, and by default my husband and I, have been left with yet another substantial debt. Two hundred and nine thousand pounds remains outstanding after the disposal of our business properties and this time it is Heritable Bank holding the ticket and not, as is the case with the forced sale on our main residence, HBOS .

Now the "assets of dubious value” have been sold, Heritable Bank, have elected to implement a pragmatic solution to our shortfall. Without prompting I was contacted and advised it is their intention to write off this debt on compassionate grounds and in so doing, Heritable have allowed me to preserve my dignity, in all my dealings with them, right through to the very end. In complete contrast HBOS, have seen fit to defend their right to hound me mercilessly from outset for a £217,000 shortfall their actions created and, but for the automatic amnesty status of any compliant under investigation by the Financial Ombudsman's Service's investigation, I have little doubt HBOS would be continuing to persecute me with monotonous regularity to date.

Quaker missionary Stephan Grellet once said, "I expect to pass through this world only once, therefore any good thing I can do, any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now: let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again." I have experienced nothing but kindness and compassion at the hands of Heritable Bank and I know, in my heart of hearts, the reason for this comes down to just one man. I believe it was he who elected, unlike HBOS, to take a leaf out of Grellet's book and act with compassion, empathy and understanding throughout.

For this simple act of kindness and for continuing to follow and encourage my blog, he is most definitely my Heritable Hero.