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.

Estimates and Equanimity

Stoic philosopher of service and duty, champion of equanimity in the face of conflict and the last of the five good Roman Emperors, Marcus Aurelius once said, “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it: and this you have the power to revoke at any moment” and, in the face of the  Financial Ombudsman Services painfully disappointing decision to reject my Bank of Scotland mortgage fraud compliant, I have spent the past few weeks revoking its power to distress by investigating and collating my evidence in readiness to give to the police.

During the process of making inquiries aimed at presenting the clearest of pictures, I have discovered the following,

• The Financial Ombudsman Service is not empowered to comment or rule on mortgage fraud and, according to the Financial Conduct Authority, should have made this clear to me from the outset.
• My local Serious Fraud Office are currently dealing with numerous broker driven mortgage frauds which are almost identical in nature to that of my own case. 
• Inland Revenue records show our taxable income for the preceding three years to our mortgage application was a mere 17% of that stated by the broker on our mortgage application.
• The mortgage application submitted to HBOS in March 2006 was not (as I originally assumed) self-certified but instead a full status application offering our company’s accounts as evidence of income and,
• Mortgage fraud can only be reported to the Serious Fraud Office in the district where the crime was committed.

Convinced this type of mortgage fraud was expertly designed by HBOS and merely implemented by the broker intermediary who introduced it, I made another request to HBOS’ executive team, this time asking them why they chose to remove the broker intermediary from their panel during the underwriting of my mortgage.

This was their response,

“With regards to your concerns about the removal of KMS from our intermediary panel, I have been in contact with our Credit Team and they have confirmed that both KMS and ******* ****** are still on our panel for intermediary business through the Halifax Brand under panel number***********...[and] the broker panel number [used previously] was not cancelled until October 2010 and was deleted as Arrangement Ended. This usually indicates a change of FSA status (such as principal) but is more likely to be due to the fact that the Bank of Scotland brand ceased taking introducer business in 2010. Therefore, our systems would update to show that the intermediary related to the panel number applicable to your application would no longer be on our panel as at today’s date.”

However, this lengthy and seemingly plausible explanation once again takes no account of the Bank of Scotland’s own underwriting screen notes for 2006 which clearly state,“The intermediary keyed for this application has been taken off the panel. Please refer to explain it for the appropriate course of action to take” which does not sound the least bit like a 2010 system update to me.Needless to say, I have now shared this information with Antonio Horta Osario’s executive team and am hoping they might  finally see fit to furnish me with a more meaningful reply.

British Indian novelist, essayist and author of Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie once asked, “How do you defeat terrorism?” His answer was, “Don’t be terrorized” and after six years of living with the terrifying consequences of a financial holocaust in which the Banksters of Scotland have played a significant part, I now live in hope that it will be information which finally sets me free.

As ever, I wait without patience for some results!

Guarded Lies

Polish born Karl Jozef Wojtyla, influential twentieth century leader and second longest serving pope in history, John Paul II once said, “An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded” and now that I am in receipt of a second Financial Ombudsman Service adjudicator assessment which once again excuses action in the face of HBOS wrong doing, I too believe excuses are indeed terrible and in the case of the FOS, tantamount to guarded lies.

Already in my sixth year of battle, I have spent the last twelve months acquiring documentary evidence to support my suspicion that the mortgage I was sold by the Bank of Scotland in June 2006 was granted as a result of false information supplied by a broker whom HBOS paid £4,500 in fees to introduce. I believe our income figures and our property valuation were massaged by both HBOS and the broker to ensure our financial position matched their lending criteria and because the application was submitted on line by the broker, my husband and I were oblivious to the methods which had been employed to secure us a re-mortgage.

Obtaining the full un-redacted files of all the documentary evidence I require from HBOS has proved an arduous task which is still not complete and despite making the FOS aware of HBOS’ obstructive practices in this regard, I have repeatedly been put under enormous pressure to agree to my case proceeding without the incriminating evidence I have been seeking. As a result of an ultimatum I was given by the FOS to produce my findings by 31 January or else forfeit my case, I was forced to submit my lengthy but nevertheless incomplete eight page letter of “further evidence” sighting several examples of underwriting practices which I believe can only be interpreted as fraudulent. In it I listed the numerous ways in which my adjudicator has both misunderstood my case and, in a previous assessment, elected to use false figures supplied by HBOS to draw his conclusions rather than the substantiated information I supplied.

I  also drew his attention to the following;

• My mortgage application was submitted, on line, without my husband or I being privy to the information used
• Once the mortgage was approved, my husband and I were asked to sign two separate declaration pages on two separate occasions on forms that were otherwise blank
• At no time did we meet the broker or anyone connected to the sale of the mortgage as all transactions were carried out via email, post or telephone
• The brokerage representative who signed and verified photocopies of our passport for identity and money laundering purposes is unknown to us.
• The broker asked us to send him photocopies of our passports but at no time did he request that he see the originals.

Having received a copy of the original application form (albeit missing the declaration pages) in January 2013 as a result of a miss selling complaint I made to HBOS, I  learned the following;

• The earned income figures submitted by the broker were grossly over-estimated and unsurprisingly amount to precisely what was required to comply with HBOS’s two and a half time income multiple underwriting requirement
• Although my husband was a property developer at the time of application and has never been a sportsman professional or otherwise, HBOS show his occupation to be that of a professional sports person.
• The income details submitted were not verified with our accountant despite us being told it was an underwriting condition at outset and HBOS themselves tell me there is no fact find to support the sale of my mortgage, no affordability checks on file and no obligatory FSA compliance check list.

In addition I strongly suspect,

• HBOS’s in house valuer rubber stamped an overly high valuation of our property because they were told we purchased the property in 2004 for £890,000 despite HBOS’s own in house solicitors’ file for its conveyance clearly stating we purchased our house in 2000 for £250,000
• And, for reasons HBOS are unprepared to share, it appears HBOS removed our broker from their panel during the underwriting process of our mortgage and as a result of this it is highly likely that the execution of our mortgage deed constituted an unauthorized sale. If this proves to be the case, the contract HBOS believe they have with us is void.

Satisfied this evidence of HBOS wrong doing would give the FOS nowhere to hide, I hoped my efforts would finally secure me the long overdue and thorough investigation my case deserves.

This is my FOS adjuducator’s response;

Dear [Life after Debt],

“Thank you for your email and attachment of 28 January 2014. As confirmed in my email of the same date I am responding to your attached letter.

Having reviewed its contents I’m afraid I have very little to add to my position on your complaint, as outlined in my opinion letter of 13 November 2013. While I take into account all of the comments you have made, our service’s role is to concentrate on what we believe are the main and relevant issues in your case. As an impartial organisation we do not take instruction from either party as it is for us to decide what evidence we consider is necessary and relevant to our investigation.”

Furthermore my adjudicator informs me,

• My broker could not be deemed to have been over incentivised to sell me an unsuitable mortgage as I signed in agreement to him receiving his fee
• It is not reasonable for me to claim over valuation now when I had no objection to the valuation the surveyor gave at the time and,
• Because the original application form shows a level of income which is sufficient to support the mortgage applied for, he "considers this...to be fair and in line with good industry practice..."

Needless to say I have, by way of an appeal, asked for my case to be referred to an Ombudsman for a ruling. I can only hope he/she has a more comprehensive understanding of mortgage complaints than my current adjudicator.

Economics graduate, former radio, film and television actor and 40th US president Ronald Reagan once said,” Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for existing” and if this is truly the case then what, I wonder, is our government’s excuse for the existence of a toothless and grossly incompetent Financial Ombudsman Service who actively dismiss the legitimate complaints of the individual while condoning the guarded lies and excuses of a corrupt banking industry?

Astonishments

Yorkshire born Canadian serviceman Harry Banks and reputedly “the crucified soldier” of the First World War once said, "If at first you don't succeed-try to hide your astonishment" and although the events of recent weeks have provided me countless opportunities to follow this advice, hiding my astonishment has been nothing short of impossible.

• I have been astonished to discover my now severely disabled eighty seven year old mother has been required to stay in hospital for two whole weeks as a result of the mismanaged administration of her medication and a shortage of mobility assessment appointments with the community physiotherapist.

• I have been astonished to discover my Incapacity Benefit assessment is subject to an appointment system which not only allows operators to cancel my designated time slot after I have already left home but then puts my benefit in jeopardy if I am unable to attend on a computer generated date which is allocated without consultation.                                                                    

And once again facing homelessness as a result of an unreasonable and violent landlord,

• I have been astonished to discover our neighbours not only own an additional house in which my family and I can be accommodated but, having had five years to observe us care for our current home, would (as of 1 December) like us to become their tenants in a very attractive property in a neighboring village.

However, despite feeling exceptionally relieved to find I no longer face the prospect of  being without a roof over our heads for Christmas, I remain astonished to find ,

• Eleven months have passed since I initiated my second attempt at lodging a complaint against HBOS with the Financial Ombudsman Service,

• Nine months have passed since I originally requested all records held by HBOS pertaining to my mortgage be sent to me via my Data Subject Access Request

• Fourteen weeks have passed since my FOS adjudicator declined to answer my emails for a period of almost three months,

• One month has passed since I reported said adjudicator to his line manager and

• Two weeks have passed since I placed an official complaint with the ICO as the result of HBOS’ non compliance in respect of my Data Subject Access Request.

I am further astonished and nothing short of astounded to learn that, without warning and ahead of the timescales previously agreed by the FOS themselves (and in the absence of the further evidence I have been waiting for the above mentioned nine long months for HBOS to produce) the FOS have now reviewed my mortgage miss selling case and, in the interests of "being fair" to HBOS, have ruled there is insufficient evidence to support my claim that HBOS have been guilty of miss selling my mortgage! 

Famed for his ridicule of the most banal of situations for European based Theatre of the Absurd in the late 1950's, contemporary Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco once said is it "explanation [which] separates us from astonishment". However, still reeling from both shock and astonishment at the way in which I continue to be dealt with by both HBOS and the Financial Ombudsman Service, it is "explanation" which now separates me in unadulterated astonishment from any understanding of a regulatory culture which prefers to permit the infamous HBOS to with hold evidence and use repeated delays to obliterate my case of complaint rather than take the time to investigate!  

Hammered

Eighteenth century German philosopher, cultural critic, poet, writer and composer Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche once said, “There are people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it” and much to my dismay this is precisely the position I find myself in now.

When, in November 2008, HBOS acquired a court order to repossess our family home, I contacted the landlord of a property which I knew had been reduced to a cold, leaky, rat invested shadow of its former glorious self. Too onerous a task for even the most robust of tenants to consider anything other than fleetingly, it had stood empty for the majority of the time that it had been available to let. However, where some saw a crumbling country pile which offered only ice cold winters, damp rooms and a fair few furry friends as housemates, I saw a five hundred year old home which was long overdue some TLC along with a landlord who might actually consider us, despite our financial circumstances.

After some tense moments of negotiation with regard to both our adverse credit history and the level of rent we could afford, the deal was done and in January 2009 we moved into a dilapidated manor house with Tudor origins. Over the past four years and nine months we have endured constant leaks, inadequate heating and all manner of wildlife infestations, but, with the help of our family and friends, we have battled with the elements to turn a once neglected house into a home and, until recently, believed all concerned were delighted with both the transformation, the financial arrangement and the way in which we have kept on top of the minor repairs.

However, following a meeting with a company advocating sustainable heating systems supported by the government’s renewable heat incentive, the attitude towards us has most definitely changed.  

After months of surveys and sales pitches, my seventy five year old landlord is now convinced we are grossly underpaying. Furthermore, he is adamant the installation of a bio-mass boiler (at a cost of somewhere in excess of £130,000) will not only service our family's heating requirements along with those of the four small commercial units he rents out in the adjacent barns, but it will also provide him with a generous return. Based on calculations produced by the salesman who remains blissfully unaware/disinterested in the ongoing structural problems of the property or the letting difficulties of the past, he has advised our landlord that the property will command a further £500 a month more in rent, inclusive of central heating fuel once the new heating system is operational.

What my landlord, his solicitor and the heating agent have failed to appreciate when formulating their calculations is;

·         A smattering of ancient radiators, many of which are broken and all of which are fed by small gauge pipes, will not be sufficient to provide adequate heating in a house of this size, however efficient the boiler

In order to stay warm I will still need to spend a further £240 to heat the water and fuel the fires on top of the inclusive rent

·        While my husband has enjoyed a cumulative wage increase of 7% over the past four years (amounting to approximately £90 a month in total) this has only served to reduce our reliance on tax credit and has not increased our household income

·         I am already in possession of £1066 pounds worth of Calor gas fuel for the winter (for which I am unable to obtain a refund) which I am still paying £154.00 per month

·         The ongoing economic crisis has not improved the chances of acquiring tenants for very large, expensive to run shabby old houses which are not water tight

And,

·         Demolishing listed outbuildings and listed walled gardens without the necessary consents usually ends in tears.

So, while I now await the outcome of irate neighbors incensed by the unapproved decimation of my historic rented home, a formal rent review via an agent which will inevitably result in my being served notice to quit and the information I have been waiting for from HBOS since February, I cannot help but be astounded to discover that despite my letter of the 1 August 2013, the Financial Ombudsman Service’s adjudicator has been unable to press HBOS to provide me with the documentation I have repeatedly requested of them via my Data Subject Access Request because he has, until yesterday...

Misplaced my correspondence!

The imminent Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche also said, “Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all” and as a result of the summers endless shenanigans, I am fast coming to the conclusion there are many who should have laid their hammers to rest some time ago.

Lest We Forget

Canadian born writer and theologian William Paul Young once said, “Forgiving is not about forgetting but it is about letting go of another persons’ throat” and having spent the past five years within the strangle hold of our creditors, I am thankful the vast majority of them have chosen to forgive.  However, I have returned home from a very welcome break with my family to be greeted by some correspondence which clearly  illustrates letting go of our throats is the last thing the Halifax Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group have in mind.

It has been six months since the Financial Ombudsman Service both ruled in my favour and awarded compensation for the distress and inconvenience that Lloyds Banking Group’s miss-handling of my husband’s credit card debt caused. Since then Lloyds have not only sold the debt twice but ignored both the income and expenditure form I completed as well the offer of settlement I made.  I am now faced with compiling yet another Financial Ombudsman Service Complaint at further cost to both myself and the tax payer.

I had hoped, as a result of my four letters to the HBOS Data Subject Access team, I would be returning to the missing documents pertaining to my miss sold mortgage.  Instead, I have received a letter which the reveals  the following:

       HBOS’s internal credit check document does not list the extent of the borrowing which was outstanding at the time of my mortgage application

       HBOS do not hold any accountants evidence to support my mortgage application

       HBOS do not hold a financial fact find of our circumstances in support our mortgage application

       HBOS continue to be unsuccessful in their endeavours to obtain information from their in house solicitor or surveyor

       HBOS are unprepared to disclose the reasons why my broker was removed from their panel during the underwriting of my mortgage

       HBOS are unprepared to send me their compliance check list on grounds it is not my personal information

This was my response;

Dear HBOS Data Subject Access Team,

Ref: *******

Thank for your letter dated 23 July 2013 and the further copies of information I requested along with your comments.

However, I have some further requests.

1.     Please may I ask you to confirm the credit reference summary is an external credit check document carried out to establish the level of financial commitment a customer already has at the time of application and not just an in house list of HBOS borrowings based on internal information and details supplied by the broker. If it is not, please supply me with copies of the external credit check carried out at the time of underwriting my mortgage.

2.     Please may I ask you to supply me with copies of the letters the DSAR team have sent to both Colleys Surveyors and Pathway Residential Lawyers requesting complete copies of my files.

3.     I would like to draw your attention to the Liberty Guide to the Human Rights Act 1998 in which it 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”. In the light that removing my broker from your panel may have had an adverse effect on the underwriting of my mortgage and your internal compliance checklist may well prove inadequate checks at the underwriting stage of my mortgage application have impacted on me personally, I would like to, once again, request that you supply me with the following;

•        Documentation which explains to the reasons my broker was removed from your panel.
•        The name of the department or the person responsible for overseeing my mortgage in the light that my broker was no longer at liberty to oversee it.
•       The internal regulatory checklist which complies with the FSA rules for the responsible underwriting of residential re-mortgages.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Yours sincerely

LAD

Soon after I sent this letter I was asked the following two questions by an Associated Press journalist. In the light of my ongoing battle and my recently received communications from both the Lloyds Banking Group and Halifax Bank of Scotland, I stand by the following answers.

Q. Do I feel the banks can now be trusted?

A. I have never enjoyed blind faith in the banking industry but, coming from a financial services background myself, I expected the banking fraternity to abide by the law, operate within regulatory guidelines and, as professionals, exercise a duty of care towards their clients in all their transaction. I believed they would follow a strict regime of client fact finding to establish which loans, investments and life policies were appropriate for their customers and I assumed them would pursue a responsible and ethical approach to the underwriting of anything they sold. I now know, as a result of my own experience, this has been far from the case and because of this I no longer trust them in any shape of form. Neither do I believe they possess the integrity or the incentives to address the cultural issues which have supported their long standing penchant for profiting from their customers by miss selling and manipulation. Despite the economic crisis and widespread hardship their actions have caused, they have suffered little consequence for their fraudulent behavior. No heads have rolled (other than those of their victims) and fines which bare little relation to the amount they have successfully procured and kept by way of ill gotten gains, only pay lip service to their empty promises of change. 

 Q.Would I consider taking out a mortgage or investing with them again?

 Because of a banking system which continues to reward dishonesty and avarice, I and my family lost our home, our livelihood and our financial future so there is little chance I will ever secure another mortgage and I no longer enjoy a level of remuneration which allows me to save. However, should I, by some wild stretch of the imagination one day be eligible for a mortgage, I would never agree to using a lenders in-house solicitor to convey my mortgage nor would I allow their in- house surveyors to value my property. I shall never ever again permit a mortgage broker to submit an online mortgage application in my name. Furthermore, I would not take out a joint and severally liable mortgage without written agreement from the lender confirming they would contact me separately from my co borrower (even if he is my husband) about every aspect of my mortgage application, its underwriting and its administration throughout its term. In the unlikely event I might one day have money to invest, I would not touch the banks with a barge pole.

William Paul Young also said, “Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible” and although I hope one day I might be able to forgive those bankers who have chosen to keep their hands firmly around my throat for the past five long years, I most definitely will not be forgetting their names.