Rottweiler's Incorporated

In recognising how hard it is to change oneself it should be easier to understand what little chance there is of changing others. However, this said, should an observation of this nature apply to the perspective of a whole bank and all those employed within it? Is it feasible for one biligerent school of thought to extend, with infectious brainwashing tentacles, into the consciousness of all those individuals commissioned do the Bank of Scotland’s bidding. Is it really possible for an unpleasant mind set on such a scale to be alive and well in the minds of every individual in a company so large?

Today, within the walls of the Bank of Scotland, I am convinced it is.

Despite the numerous letters I have written requesting I be advised be of their instruction to debt collecting solicitors Merrils Ede’s, Bank of Scotland's reply has not been forthcoming.  Although Merrils Ede solicitors know, through our representative at the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, I am unlikely ever to be in a position to repay any of our creditors, still they persist with their campaign of persecution with the Bank of Scotland’s blessing.

Today the postman brought a threat from Merrils Ede to start legal and bankruptcy proceedings if they do not hear from me within 10 days. They wish me to provide yet more financial evidence to prove I still don’t have any money.  It is clear the full financial fact find, certified by the CAB, and repeatedly sent to them has clearly proven insufficient again.  Regardless of the fact the Office of Fair Trading state this kind of harassment is contrary to their guidelines, the henchwoman at Merrils Ede continues with her crusade to uncover my "undeclared wealth". On their website they proudly state their debt collecting services regard money owed "like their own" and it goes on to say they pursue “can’t pay’s” in the same way as” won’t pays”.  I can certainly endorse this behaviour as the solicitor assigned to my case refuses to accept having no money is a good enough reason for not making a payment arrangement.

The fact  Merrils Ede has been made aware, on numerous occasions, our £217,000 shortfall is unrecoverable appears to be irrelevant. I am now being pursued by them because the CAB recently told them a great many of our creditors have written off and continue to write of our debts on the basis of hardship and compassion. The CAB did this in an effort to persuade the Bank of Scotland to follow suit, however, using only Rottweiler reasoning, the Merrils Ede henchwoman believes debts being forgiven must have resulted in some additional disposable income for her to direct into the Bank of Scotland's and Merrils Ede’s coffers.

I ask myself , “Is it really so hard to understand the reason so many of our debts have been forgiven is not because we have been paying anyone, but  because we have been unable, and continue to be unable, to make any payments to any of our creditors?” How can having a sum written off in these circumstances leaves anything more in the budget for Rottweiler’s incorporated?

This logicless pursuit is undoubtedly a breach of any number of OFT and Ombudsman guidelines and the ongoing bombardment of menacing letters from the Bank of Scotland’s legal representative is yet another source of agitation in a life full of financial instability and pressure. Moreover, Ms Rottweiler's refusal to believe my unredeemable financial position, is nothing short of insulting. 

Tonight, however, I plan to take solace in the words of Pope John XXIII and tomorrow....... well tomorrow, as with every day, I plan to fight back.

"Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do. "- Pope John XXIII

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. 

Blood, Fret and Tears

Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger once said, "Any fact that needs to be disclosed should be put out now or as quickly as possible, because otherwise the bleeding will never end" and while I appreciate he was referring to damage limitation as US secretary of state, his observations ring equally true for the effects of mental illness and stress.  However, if my own case is anything to go by, the Bank of Scotland, now part of Lloyds Banking Group, have no interest in damage limitation for anyone other than themselves, nor do they consider the toll of the never ending bleed of mental ill health, more commonly known as stress, inflicts on the individuals in their hands.

Our troubles began in 2006 when, having just remortgaged with the Bank of Scotland to fund a building project, both my husband’s mother and brother were simultaneously diagnosed with familial MND. Although they were told MND running in families was almost unheard of, it became blatantly clear (as my husband’s aunt had died from MND twenty years earlier) our family had drawn a very short, and frightening, straw.  Between regular trips to care for our dying relatives my husband made the decision to sell our beautiful sixteenth century home on the completion of the building project as he it wished to become our new home. He believed relocating would provide us with not only a place to live but an income from the annexed accommodation as he feared he too was suffering from the early signs of MND and would soon be paralyzed or on his death bed  just like his forty four year old brother.

When my husbands mother and brother died in March 2007, sadly only three weeks apart, I agreed to put our home on the market knowing only that my husband no longer wished to work in residential property development market. Completely unaware of his health issues and without the knowledge my husband had been late with several mortgage payments in an effort to supplement the cash flow of the other build, I was pleased when a keen cash purchaser was found in November 2007 on the grounds it would simplify life for my husband after such a grueling and emotionally draining year.

However, in just a few short weeks prospects for my husband, me and our three young children completely changed.

·        In January 2008 our purchaser’s purchaser withdrew the offer on their house on the grounds he did not wish to develop their property in a falling market.

·        In March 2008 our purchasers, conveyance solicitors, found a new purchaser but after experiencing a sharp downturn in their turnover, decided to redirect funds originally allocated to the house purchase of our house, to their business.

·        In April 2008 our purchasers applied for a mortgage in order to raise funds to buy our house.

·        In May 2008 our purchaser’s mortgage valuation revealed our house was not worth the agreed £950,000 price they had offered four months earlier but instead was only worth £800,000. This was £225,000 less than our Bank of Scotland mortgage valuation of May 2006.

·        In June 2008, still waiting to see if our purchasers were prepared to proceed at a lower price but with no other prospective buyers in sight, we decided to look for a tenant to cover the monthly mortgage interest payments.

·        In July 2008 our mortgage payments rose from £2,400 a month to over £5,000 per month when our two year fixed rate ended.

·         In August 2008 our purchasers formally withdrew their offer.

·      In September 2008 a tenant was secured for our property at £2,200 per month but the Bank of Scotland rejected our proposal to tenant our home and make part payments.

·        In October 2008 the funding for our building project dried up when our business bank went into administration and as a consequence my husband became unemployed.

·        In October 2008 I discovered my husband had not been opening the post or paying the mortgage for more than sixth months leaving us £27,000 in arrears. I took over the running of our finances and the responsibility for the post.

·        In October 2008 my husband confessed, had he not discovered his life assurance had lapsed, he had every intention of committing suicide.

·        In October 2008 my husband and I visited our doctor and were told he was suffering from symptoms of extreme stress and unresolved grief but thankfully not MND.

·        In October 2008 I told the Bank of Scotland I had not been privy to any conversations or received any communication from them concerning our arrears.

·        In November 2008 I again offered the Bank of Scotland monthly payments of £2,200 as interest rates had fallen and my husband had found part-time employment in a local supermarket. My proposal was rejected once again, this time on the grounds it was too late.

·        In November 2008 Bank of Scotland applied for and were granted a possession order for my home. I sat, alone, in front of the judge and wept.

·        In April 2009 the Bank of Scotland sold our home for £665,000 leaving us with a £217,000 shortfall.

·        In April 2009 the Bank of Scotland instructed their solicitors Merrils Ede to pursue us for the repayment of a £217,000 shortfall from my husband’s salary of £12,000 per year.

·        In April 2009 and in complete contrast, our business bank Heritable agreed to complete and sell our unfinished building project and write off the £209,000 shortfall on compassionate grounds.

• In  June 2009 I was told I would most probably have a case against the Bank of Scotland for their lack of duty of care and their over valuation of my property at outset. To date I have been unable to secure anyone to take my case forward without funding.

Throughout the following year, with the charitable help of the CAB’s debt consultants, a total of £800,000 of my husband’s business and personal debt was written off on grounds of compassion and hardship. The Bank of Scotland and their parent company Lloyds Banking Group are alone in their decision to perpetuate our purgatory with their unrelenting harassment for repayment. In desperation, I have tried  to enlist the help of the Financial Ombudsman Service only to be told the Bank of Scotland are contractually at liberty to pursue us for a shortfall regardless of the manner in which it was created . They FOS have also advised me the Bank of Scotland plan to argue that my case is both out of jurisdiction on timescale and without  legal substance. The Bank of Scotland are adamant the regulatory and government initiatives to encourage banking forbearance in cases such as ours are merely unenforceable guidelines, codes of conduct and protocols which are not legally binding. The Financial Ombudsman agrees with them.

Had the Bank of Scotland accepted our offer of rental income against our mortgage payments in September 2008 we would still have a home to return to today. The rental would have provided sufficient income to cover the interest on our mortgage as well as a substantial contribution towards the arrears. However,  instead, the Bank of Scotland chose to use the possession order they acquired through the courts to push through the forced sale of our home in April 2009. In doing so they created a huge deficit by way of a £217,000 shortfall which, from outset, they were fully aware was and is beyond us to resolve.

After three years of continued persecution and, according to my advisors, a further nine years to go before the Bank of Scotland are themselves out of jurisdiction, it seems they are nothing short of hell bent on driving both my husband and I to our stress related deaths before they will reconsider their position. To date I have lost my all my hair, my eyebrows and my eyelashes along with forty pounds in weight while my husband regularly alternates between uncontrollable rage and suicidal despondency. Our children often refer with sadness to happier times before we lost our home.

In the words of Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger, and in the absence of any money, I can only conclude the Bank of Scotland are determined to ensure our “bleeding will never end".

Outstanding accounts

As my husband arrived home earlier than unexpected today he found me sitting with a friend in our cosy farmhouse kitchen.  Being a very blustery day, we had chosen warm tea and M&S waste sale chocolate for our refreshment while injured seals were the topic of conversation. This comforting scene was achieved by exercising a well practiced mental manoeuvre which took me swiftly from debt fighting machine to comely housewife and mother in the blink of an eye and, by adopting this facade, I have managed to maintain the divide between our unpalatable past and our family’s future. 

My friend, equally chameleon like in her abilities, played her role of tea drinking companion to perfection as she packed away her computer while chatting about current affairs with my husband.  After a few minutes of pleasantries, she discreetly gathered up the post of the day and made her exit.  She, like my husband, understands the rules only too well.  The financial monster in the cupboard has been strictly out of bounds for him since October 2008.

The letters dispatched today are as consequence of my email being featured on BBC Radio 2.  Host Jeremy Vine was discussing debt related mental health issues with Martin Lewis who gasped when he heard my story.  The task in hand has been to attempt to contact Martin Lewis for help.

One of the many points which were made was even a relatively strong, financially aware person, such as myself, is unable to make suitable and informed decisions while suffering from stress.  The organisations whose livelihoods depend on the collection of debt, trade on this knowledge.  It is little wonder many people, including my husband, are driven to consider suicide because of the debt collecting companies campaigns of unrelenting harassment. In 2008 we were receiving upwards of thirty phone calls a day starting at 8.00am and finishing at 9.00pm. I always answered every one.

For six months my friend watched me attempt to deal with our insurmountable financial problems until April 2009, when, I finally agreed to accept her help.  By this time I had lost 35lbs and every hair on my body.

Today and every day since, my friend has freely given her time to fight my cause. We call it the “Crap Clinic” and we meet regularly to engage in the “Battle of the Banks”.  Because of her determined resolve at a time when I was emotionally on my knees, my £1,000,000 horror story has been reduced to a mere £350,000 nightmare.  Thankfully, she has agreed to see it through with me to the very end.  Without her selfless devotion, I would have undoubtedly collapsed under the pressure.

How can I ever repay her?

Postal Panic

Former stand up comedian, youth counsellor and advocate of social emotional learning Michael Pritchard once said, "Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed" and as a result of my ongoing experiences at the hands of the banks, my fear is now fully developed into an all encompassing and completely involuntary negative reaction whenever I catch sight of our postman.

Frequently terrified to the core at a mere glimpse of a Royal Mail van outside my house, the feeling of utter defenselessness has been further heightened now I have been advised by the Citizen’s Advice Bureau that their debt counselling budget for my case has been exhausted. Despite the fact that I rarely receive any correspondence I am unable to deal with these days, I seem to be incapable of allowing logic to suppress my panic. This is the price I am paying for attempting to deal direct with the banks following a financial demise which left my family without an income and homeless, and my husband with forty four defaulted credit cards, four defaulted mortgages and a substantial number of the irate tradesmen.

Initially, my daily mission was to speak or write in response to every letter received in the belief that taking action would be the antidote to the all consuming terror I felt at our hopeless financial position. Needless to say I got nowhere. At best the collections departments were sympathetic but all insisted they had no means of communicating with the decision makers within their own organisations and as a result their hands were tied. The postal persecution continued. Forty letters a day advised me I had ignored all previous attempts to communicate, bailiffs would be calling to assess my assets and doorstep collection agents were imminent. The notification of court cases pending were too numerous to even warrant separate files. Despite constantly communicating with each and every one of them the heartless harassment continues and repeatedly trying to resolve the seemingly unresolvable cost me my hair and my health.

Today, thankfully, my postman brought only good news yet the short term relief from a single day of respite remains blighted by the knowledge that tomorrow my fears of further threats will probably be justified. Persecution by post has consumed my life, my health and my marriage and now, in addition to living with the horrors of a million pounds of unresolvable debt I also fear, if the banks continue to have their way, postal panic is not a condition I will ever be allowed to recover from.

I hope and pray I am wrong.

Health wealth and happiness

I read recently "the true measure of a man is what he would do if he would never be caught” and having always operated with a totally different moral outlook myself, I struggle to comprehend a life code of this kind.  For me it has always been about whether or not a proposed action is beneficial for all those concerned and, for the last thirty three years, every one of my decisions has, by necessity, taken into account the impact it would have on my children.

In the early days, within the first few months of the Grand Opening, I was desperate to understand the motivating values on which my husband based the decisions which ultimately led to our family to its complete financial demise.   It was a chance meeting which gave me the first tiny insightful fragment into what may have happened to my husband’s decision making processes.

According to my source there are two completely separate elements to making every decision, namely the cerebral and the emotional. The emotional component works out the impact of a proposed actions success or failure while the cerebral component does the calculations necessary for its implementation and measures the chance of  its success. I am told neither process should rule the other but instead they should work in partnership to give a balance of risk verses return for every decision. 

It is clear to me  my husband’s withdrawal following the grief he suffered on diagnosis of his aunt, his mother and his brother from Motor Neurone disease, followed by their sad, painful and terrifying deaths only weeks apart, promoted an emotional shut down which had a catastrophic affect on my husband’s business acumen. However, whilst I can explain and understand these circumstances in a single, heart- broken man, I cannot for the life of me understand the logic of an almost identical decision making process which appears to have guided HBOS bankers down a similar path of ditruction. Surely when it comes to an corporate strategy, the chances of making responsible business decisions are improved by the numbers of those involved in rolling out these commercial initiatives. That is, of course, unless the banking industry has been brought to its knees by what the men at the top were prepared to do believing they would not be caught.

While  I can see irresponsible lending along with banking executive greed has undoubtedly brought our financial industry to its knees, sadly it is not the culprits of this crime who are destined to suffer the cost. Instead, it is my family’s health, wealth and happiness which appears to be the price they are only to happy to pay. French mathematician Blaise Pascal once said," Justice and power must be brought together so that whatever is powerful is just and whatever is just is powerful."

I live in hope.

It's a mad, mad world

Along with the other Mum’s of the year five children at my son’s prep school, I am nearing the completion of their longitudinal study.  I am expecting to do quite well, in a nine year old boy sort way, but can’t for the life on me understand why, each year, the unwritten school law dictates this project should be produced. If the Mum’s are hard at work producing it then surely it is beyond the ability of the vast majority of the pupils for whom it is set.

 There is however, a bi-product.  The expectation for me to turn a small boy’s efforts into something the school can be proud of has allowed me to become an expert on Lord Kelvin the mathematician and physicist.  When, during my research, I discovered Lord Kelvin said “you can understand perfectly if you give your mind to it,” I found myself sighing in exasperation at my endless, and so far fruitless, attempts to have a meaningful dialogue with Lloyds TSB and HBOS.

Further frustrated at more examples of Lloyds TSB’s mindless and misguided actions when I read journalist and BBC reporter Ian Fraser’s recent blog I can't but be incredulous to discover Antonio Horta-Osorio is being rewarded with a “golden hello” in excess £13,000,000 in recognition of the difficulties he is to face in his new job as trouble shooter extraordinaire. Having written to Antonio Horta-Osorio twice recently I do not rate his chances at living up to the board of Lloyds TSB’s expectations if my experiences are anything to go by. My first letter to him was as Chief Executive of Santander. I wrote in an effort to solicit some support and compassion following an Abbey National campaign of bombardment due to our credit card default.

 On the second occasion I wrote to him in his role as Chief Executive of Lloyds TSB.  In this letter I asked him to intervene with HBOS. They have, over the course of two years, been harassing and bullying me in an effort to collect on a debt they know to be unrecoverable and which still hold they created.   In both cases I did not receive a reply and although I concede I am but a small fish, it does not bode well if organisations cannot communicate with their customers and  instead continue to waste share holders money chasing unrecoverable debt.  If this is too change I, like Ian Fraser, cannot see how paying Executives lavish rewards at any time, let alone in a recession,  can do anything other than massage their egos to the point of deity status.  To pay them obscene amounts before they have achieved any of the anticipated results seems nothing short of ludicrous. 

Lord Kelvin also said, “When you are faced with a difficulty, you are up against a discovery” and after the past two years of extreme financial and emotional hardship I can only agree  I have discovered after much personal difficult with both HBOS bankers and my son's longitudinal study,  the madness is clearly set to continue in both the banking world and at my son’s prep school.