Truth and Punishment

Mahatma Gandhi, preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India once said, "Many people, especially ignorant people, punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you are right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth" and after receiving not one, but two heartless letters of HBOS hogwash this week it is clear that ignorance and a complete disregard for the truth is not just the prerogative of Gandhi’s British-ruled India.

It is now four and a half years since the sale fell though on our home and I was prompted to discuss with Halifax Bank of Scotland how best to avoid repossession. Deaf to my proposals to create a tenancy to cover mortgage payments, I embarked upon another fruitless year of communication with HBOS after they forced its sale. During this highly stressful period I enlisted the help of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau’s but, despite their best efforts, no amount of explanation could satisfy this infamous bank that we were in extreme financial difficulties or persuade them to arrest their pursuit of us. It is was only after I consulted a government funded debt management organisation in desperation that I discovered the mortgage on my home may well have been miss sold in the first place.

It has taken me a further three years, via the Financial Ombudsman Service, to persuade HBOS to investigate my complaint only to find their original offer of mortgage was based on both a fictitious purchase price and a fictitious date of purchase at the application stage. I was sure making HBOS aware of this discovery would illustrate, without question, that not only did my compliant have substance but both HBOS’s surveyor and the broker to whom they paid more than £4,000 for placing the mortgage with them, had over-valued my home at outset. Convinced I had finally secured HBOS’s attention, I was relieved to have taken my first, albeit small, step forward after so many unsuccessful years of trying to communicate. Here follows their reply and sadly nothing could have been further from the truth.

In HBOS’s first letter they state,

“The information that was provided in this [mortgage application form] was what was entered into our systems. We took this as being accurate in good faith, and based upon the valuation that took place during the application process, there was never any reason to think this was wrong...Having viewed your comments and our response, my previous letter...has provided you with our final conclusions...As you have reached the end of our internal complaints procedure, any further correspondence received will be placed on file as we do not feel that further communication with you will help resolve your complaint.”

In HBOS’s second letter (which arrived by the very same post) I am told “this matter” has now been put in the hands of their debt collectors.

Because of the scandalous actions of banks such as HBOS, the taxpayer has been saddled with,

•         An £850 billion bill to bail them out,
•     £1.1 trillion of potential liabilities
•     £560 billion of quantitative easing to rebuild balance sheets

Yet I who have lost my home, my livelihood and my financial future at their hands can not only expect to be pursued by them for a £217,000 shortfall for the foreseeable future, while they, in the face of evidence which clearly illustrates there has been serious wrong doing, choose to remain ignorant of the truth and punish me for having the audacity to speak out.

Harvey Fierstein, American actor, playwright, author and champion for gay civil rights once said, “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim and accept no one’s definition of your life,” and because of the way in which HBOS have continued to treat me, it is my plan to turn this day along with each and every other one into an opportunity to follow, without deviation, every single word of Mr Fierstein’s advice.

Literature, Legacies and Legislation

American industrialist and pioneer of the assembly line process Henry Ford once said, “Speculation is only a word covering the manipulation of prices instead of the supply of goods and services” and with an ever lengthening list of criminal practices assembling on the global doorsteps of our errant bankers, it is easy to believe dubious business initiatives embracing a sales rather than service culture have been the modus operandi by which the banking elite have manipulated their way into a life of excess and affluence.

Yet, after decades of the exploitation of financial deregulation to secure profits at any price, CBI chief John Crickland is keen to point out now is not the time to seek payback for all those who have fallen foul of this relentless reign of economic plundering.  Instead he believes we should focus on how best to prevent this legacy of banking fraudulence from coming home to roost. Not only is he calling for legislation to place time limits on claimants who have been miss sold PPI but he also believes people who have suffered Libor related losses should be legislatively discouraged from bringing cases against the culprits for fear the costs of compensation will be impossible to deliver.

However, seemingly unperturbed by either lobbyists worries or recent reports that sixty six billion pounds of bank bailout debt is unlikely ever to be repaid, some of the very same individuals who condoned both Libor manipulation and the miss selling of ever increasing numbers of financial products are still, with the endorsement of their regulators and the law, misrepresenting their forty billion pound toxic loan books to disguise their losses while enjoying sizable rewards for failure. Furthermore, despite austerity led postponement of UK retirement dates along with reduced pension incomes (current and future) for the majority, these morally challenged individuals are also to have a comfortable share of a combined pension fund amounting to in excess of one hundred and four million pounds. Fortunately for them a sum of this magnitude will provide individual annuities of several hundred thousand pounds of indexed retirement income per year.

In contrast, all I can show for the past four years of endless communication with a bank which has already been fined 3.5 million pounds for the miss handling of 45% of its complaints, is £500 in compensation from the Financial Ombudsman for their own miss handling of my case and a half page letter from HBOS advising me they are finally about to investigate my miss sold mortgage.

However, if regulators remain adamant it is both difficult and inappropriate to prosecute banksters for their crimes and legislation continues to find ways to favor them above me, in the absence of resorting to getting those responsible round the throat and attempting to throttle the life out of them, I suspect it is will prove increasingly necessary for me to tweak my game.

To this end I plan to,

• Contact Hilary Messer of RPW solicitors to explore the benefits of a mortgage miss selling class action
• Speak to a mortgage miss selling claims firm to discuss both my eligibility and how best to quantify loss

And

• Compile a list of "fictional" characters from the banking world on which to base my book.

Foundling father and third President of the United States Thomas Jefferson once said, “The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money” and despite enduring overwhelming frustration and a great deal of heartache at the hands of both the Halifax Bank of Scotland and the Financial Ombudsman Service, I must admit this last thought has left me feeling I know exactly what President Jefferson means.

Here's hoping some of my readers may be prepared to help me dish the dirt! 

Business Worries

Eighteenth century English writer and printer Samuel Richardson once said, “Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity,” and while there is no doubt the calamitous circumstances of recent years have necessitated a certain amount of re-invention on my part, it has been the loss of my financial integrity which has caused me to suffer the most.

A little more than four years ago I was living the life of a stay at home mother of five children and wife of a successful property developer. We resided in a beautifully restored sixteenth century barn on the banks of the river Severn and enjoyed regular visits to the Costa del Sol where we stayed in our equally beautiful Spanish apartment.  Often hosting gatherings both at home and abroad for friends and family while organising and attending fund raising activities for the school, I endeavoured to be an upstanding and contributory member of our small community and a supportive silent partner in my husband’s business.

To my horror, I learnt the credit crunch of October 2008 was not just something which was happening to other people and quickly found being a victim of it meant losing our home, our business and our financial future. While errant bankers were using the sub prime mortgage market to prop up their balance sheets, my husband had, without my knowledge, endeavoured to prop up our own business by borrowing to the hilt. The subsequent and some would say calculated collapse of the property market along with the demise of our business bank Heritable not only meant we were unable to service our loans but we were without the means with which to repay our creditors. I was crippled with the shame from the demise of our financial integrity and made full disclosure of all future financial matters a condition of our marriage’s survival.

During the years which followed I have struggled to trust my husband despite guarantees he will never again exclude me from his decision making. Thankfully our lives, and my self esteem, have tentatively pieced themselves back together and gradually I have relaxed into some semblance of normality. Once again, I live in a beautiful house (albeit rented through friends and shared with lodgers), my children remain in independent schools (albeit through bursaries for which I have gone cap in hand to secure) and through the generosity of our family, we still visit the Costa del Sol from time to time. I have even started to organise and attend charitable events in an effort to once again be an upstanding and contributory member of the community. However, I also spend many a covert hour communicating with our creditors and their regulators and I continue to find tasks of this nature excruciatingly painful.

On the other hand, I am delighted to report that these days life is far from all bad. There are even moments of immense pride and pure joy. Only recently, for example, my eldest son, at the age of seventeen, secured a place at university to read English and Creative Writing only to discover, because of his young age, he would be unable to take up his place in hall without a parent present when collecting the keys. Thanks to the kindness of my older daughter who suggested she drive us, not only did this allow me to relax in the knowledge her company car’s satellite navigation would deliver us to our destination without out issue, but it also gave me a very welcome but all too rare chance to play my part of exceptionally proud mother while, for the first time in twenty five years, enjoying a fascinating afternoon’s sightseeing in London. It was unadulterated bliss.

Four years on from the onset of our personal financial crisis, I am very pleased to find our modest income, with the help of tax credits, continues to cover our outgoings and although my husband’s job with M & S is a menial one, it provides him the opportunity to study via the Open University. Without the worry of creditors hurling abuse at the door, over the phone or via the post I have become settled in a way I would have struggled to imagine in the days which followed my discovery of our true financial position. I have even begun to believe that one day our financial integrity may well be fully restored and allow us to lay to rest the ghosts.

However, this morning’s revelations have blown all thoughts of domestic bliss and hopes for a future of financial integrity to smithereens and I am consumed with fear for what may be to come because,

My husband tells me he has started a small business.

He has opened a bank account and made his first trade.

He tells me there is to be no borrowing and no stock holding.

He insists he will not give up his day job nor will he let this venture interfere with his studies.

He believes this is the only method in which to secure us a reasonable financial future.

He regrets he did not choose to tell me sooner but was concerned I might discourage him or it would cause me unnecessary worry.

He assures me he knows what he is doing.

He promises me everything will to be alright.

The trouble is.....

I’ve heard this all once before!

American actress, playwright and sex symbol Mae West once said, “People who are surprised easily need to be surprised more often” and I am most certainly guilty of being shocked to hear my husband, after eighteen years of marriage, four years of which were endured in the grips of an integrity stripping calamity, has now, without any mention or discussion, embarked upon another business venture. While I have no doubt he views my concerns for what amounts to little more than his opening a bank account as an over-reaction arising from my being over-sensitized to the consequences of debt, I unlike Mae West do not believe the solution to this is to be surprised more often.

Quite frankly I find the prospect of repeating the last four, however remote, nothing  short of terrifying.