Father's Day

Yesterday I took my children to shop for Father’s Day gifts and guided them towards three suitable purchases within our budget.  Feeling no resentment towards the penny watching regime which has become second nature to us all, I took pride in making sure they understood the value of a thoughtful gift, however small.  We came away with a bargain priced family DVD, a bag of popcorn and a New Scientist magazine. I knew all these item prove more than acceptable to my husband who, since our financial demise, would not dream of buying anything for himself.  I delighted in the joy and the excitement on my children’s faces in their anticipation of the act of giving and the pleasure their gifts would bring to the recipient. 

As with any celebratory day in our household, the children were unable to contain themselves and arrived at our bedroom door bright and early.  I watched my husband carefully unwrap his gifts and discuss its merits with each child without any outward signs of his pleasure and while the children were unphased by his reserve, I struggled to suppress an overwhelming sense of grief for the absence of warmth in his actions towards us.  Oblivious to his inanimate facade, the children quickly moved onto other things secure in the familiarity of family life.  I, on the other hand, was left to talk myself out of the anti climax which always goes hand in hand with my husband’s lack of emotive reaction to anything.

I have attempted to rectify this obstacle in our relationship many times by.

· Explaining how difficult it is for me to live without engagement of this nature, His response has been either, it is just my perception and not at all how he is or I am an excessively needy person and this is a failing in me not him.

· Asking for a smile or a verbal response but in these instances I am told that either my questions are rhetorical and require no answer or he has no inclination to grin like a banshee at my behest.

· Trying to ignore this trait. However, I often feel resentful and deprived of what I perceive as his side of what should be two way communication within our marriage.

On days when I am sure I am deserving of a smile or some warmth, I grieve silently for the lack of it. These days, my face will often mirror the inanimate nature of his as we go about our lives in silence and, on occasion, when my grief turns to anger, I demand to know if he has heard me say how brightly the sun is shining or how well the children have settled at school but my outburst are not pleasant for either of us.

I know my husband does not refuse engagement with me out of malice but his ignorance of his actions and his refusal to consider the long term consequences of this lack of intimacy regularly renders my heart heavy and while I understand the impact of our ongoing precarious financial position has already taken its toll on the fragile ego of this shy and sensitive man, I can see behind his deadpan expression that the three year battering at the hands of our creditors has left him a legacy of shame for his part in it.

Sadly, despite my best efforts, it is on days like these I realise the task of rebuilding our marriage is likely to outstrip the difficulties I am currently experiencing trying to rebuild our lives financially and although I have always subscribed to the, "Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, either way you are right" fraternity, today, on our seventeenth Father Days together, 

I simply don’t know what to think or what to do.

Careful wishes

When my daughter contracted a very visible dose of chicken pox at the age of ten, my youngest son who was age eight at the time, declared if he too caught chicken pox he did not plan to have spots above his belly button.  Smiling indulgently at his fanciful notion I was amazed to discover he had acquired exactly what he wished for only three weeks later when my daughter counted two hundred and thirty chicken pox spots and announced there was not a single blemish above the waist. 

Recalling this remarkable outcome has served to remind me of the importance of formulating my objectives for my ongoing campaign and whilst I appreciate this clarity is imperative to my success, it has become increasingly difficult to achieve recently. Initially my only objective was sanctuary from the relentless creditor bombardment but, two years on, I am still on the receiving end of the HBOS big stick despite my best efforts. For this reason I am now  unsure whether just putting an end to the HBOS beatings would be sufficient recompense for the suffering I have endured but merely a very acceptable start.

During yet another intensive morning at the debt fighting coal face with my invaluable friend Chris, I said “once more unto the breach my friend” as we took up arms in the never ending Battle of the Banks. On this occasion Merrils Ede solicitors were firmly in our sights with yet more evidence, freshly retrieved from my doormat, of their taste for victimising me convinced me their unfaltering objective was to milk their lucrative Bank of Scotland Cash Cow for as much as they can get away with. Today's correspondence shares these findings with the Financial Ombudsman Service because I firmly believe my family’s well being has been irrelevant in their dealings with me and instead provides Merrils Ede endless opportunities to line their pockets.

Aware that although Merrils Ede are only the oppressors of today, I have not lost sight of the fact it isthe Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group on which I need to focus when crystallising my game plan. 

In an ideal world I would like the following,

  ·      Public exposure of Merrils Ede and the Bank of Scotland's penchant for not differentiating between can’t pay and won’t pay. 
·        Public exposure of Bank of Scotland's unashamed abdication from their responsibilities as lenders to keep me informed on the status of our mortgage because of my wifely status. 
·        Public exposure of Lloyds Bank for joining ranks with HBOS and condoning this behaviour by flitting between the role of persecutor and administrative incompetent for three whole years.

In addition I would like to think there would be some compensation from HBOS for, 

·        Escalating a problem to ten times its original size (see International Woman’s Day) 
·        Unnecessarily repossessing our home when an alternative could have saved it and our future equity. 
·        Blatantly flaunting discriminatory practises against married women.
·        Negligently omitting to advise me to take independent legal advice separately from my husband at outset. 
·        Causing three years of relentless pain and suffering at the hands of their henchmen while fully aware of our vulnerability and our financial plight. 

Above all else, I truly and carefully wish for one thing above all else.  I wish with all my heart that through my writing, I might eventually be heard.  As wishing in this way worked for my son I am hoping, if I am very careful what I wish for, it might also work for me. In the meantime, like Henry the Fifth who tells his men as they go into battle to “set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide” I, with the help of my appointed Ombudswoman and trusty friend Chris, will battle on. 

Here's hoping careful wishes work.

Tenants and Tantrums

On Sunday evening Darryl packed his bags and left my home two full days after I told him to vacate and two full days after I told him the cost of the damaged he had caused. Thankfully, as a licensee rather than a tenant with rights, I am at liberty to ask him to leave at any time.   I can only assume he has spent the interim at his parents licking the wounded pride of a homeless thirty five year old businessman who refused to live respectfully in my shared household.

Daryl did not show his face when he skulked away into the night with his dirty possessions and I was not unhappy about this at all.   I have not lost sleep over the somewhat ghastly realisation of what having Daryl living under my roof entailed but, none the less, it hasn’t been one of the highlights of my room letting endeavours. Business minded to the end, I emailed him the following day to request his bank details to enable me to send a partial rent refund direct to his account. This seemingly innocuous action on my part appears to have dispensed with Daryl’s normal inclination to silence in regard to money matters and triggered a torrent of indignation. Daryl may well have got a kick from my firm words of reprimand in the past but he definitely does not like the fact I have snaffled his deposit as recompense for the damaged he has caused.

I am able to make this statement with absolute certainty because he has emailed me, at length, five times today on this subject alone.  It appears he cannot believe steam cleaning curry and excrement out of carpets in two rooms, acid cleaning the flagstone floor, replacing a rug on which he has split every manner of food, and purchasing new bed linen due to the unmentionable stains of his self gratification would add up to a little in excess of £400.

Daryl tells me he really needs this money to re-establish himself elsewhere. He says, unlike me, he has no family or friends in the area on which to rely and nor does he have sufficient funds to be able to afford to forfeit money in this manner. He insists I should immediately return his deposit to him, in full, because he cannot manage if I don’t.  Conceding he did damage the carpets he continues his monologue by offering to pay all reasonable bills (subject to quotes) from next month’s pay packet if I will just refund his deposit in full now.

What Darryl forgets is he has already shown me, for three whole months, how easily lies trip off his tongue if there is any chance of currying favour. Every syllable he has ever uttered has illustrated how much he values his own importance above all else and every month his reluctance to part with any money, even if it is due to me in rent, has declared his already declared his lack of integrity loud and clear.

Darryl is blissfully unaware I am not just a landlady and mother of five but a one woman debt fighting machine living in a rented house for which I am answerable to our landlords for any damage.  Little does he know I battle the wrath of the banks daily while preparing to take on HBOS and Lloyds TSB in the Courts.  He is ignorant of the fact that for three years I have continued to live with this pressure day in day out for the love of my children and to save my family’s future.  Sadly for Darryl he will have no idea his tantrums and threats are falling on deaf and pre-occupied ears because my skin has grown inordinately thick with the relentless flailing of the debt collector’s whip.

God's banker

Finding myself in need of some respite from my role as Battler of the Banks, I embarked on some recreational research. In doing so I discovered Ian Fraser’s article of March 2009 about God’s Banker. Without reading any further I knew immediately this piece was about Stephen Green, Chief Executive of HSBC.

Having asked the Citizen’s Advice Bureau in January 2009 to help me deal with our creditors I was still sinking under the weight of the abusive correspondence from HSBC. Despite a full CAB explanation of our circumstances, the correspondence from the debt collection agency appointed by HSBC was becoming increasingly threatening in its nature. In desperation I went into the local HSBC branch in June 2009 to explain our position only to be met with the staff’s expressions of hopelessness along with apathetic comments which got me nowhere. I arrived at my friend Chris's house in tears believing there was to be no end to HSBC’s demands and my plight was indeed as hopeless as intimated by the branch employees.

After issuing a few comforting words, my trusty friend and comrade at arms fired up her computer with the statement, “I think it’s time to write to the Chief Executive.” Moments later we were reading that HSBC’s man at the top was an ordained Anglican Priest who had spent a year working at a hostel for alcoholics and I allowed myself a flicker of hope. Believing I might be approaching a man of integrity, I wrote to Stephen Green asking for his compassion in the light of our irreversibly dire financial circumstances and asked if he could arrange for my husband’s debts with HSBC to be written off rather than relentlessly and heartlessly pursued. Mr Green did not disappoint.

In reply to my letter, the Head of HSBC Customer Relations advised me they would not only be writing off the £45,000 my husband owed them directly but they were also able to write off a further £15,000 of credit card debt which was under their management. They concluded with the words they “hoped their decision would bring me comfort and it would go some way towards allowing you and your family to make a fresh start without the worries of the past.” This time I was crying with relief.

Ian Fraser says, “At last an honest banker,” and quotes Stephen Green as saying,
“It is as if, too often, people had given up asking whether something was the right thing to do, and focused only on whether it was legal and complied with the rules. The industry needs to recover a sense of what is right and suitable as the key impulse for doing business” and while Ian founds his remarks “hugely refreshing” I found his actions hugely humane.

However, I find it hugely inhumane HBOS and Lloyds Banking Group still chose to operate in heartless contrast to the kind and logical words, and actions, of God's banker while two years on from the release of my husband’s obligations to HSBC I am still struggling to make any kind of “fresh start” because of their persecution of us.

How much is enough?

Recently Ian Fraser, reporter and BBC journalist introduced me to William Hopper’s financial observation “The credit crunch is like an atomic bomb”.  My attention was immediately captured by his succinct explanation of how a shift in attitude over a four hundred year period has produced the unstable economy we have today.  In his article Hopper praises the legacy of the migrating East Anglian Puritans who, in the 1630s, moved to the USA with their “gift” of good management. This gift was an ethos grounded in the belief pursuit of an ideal society with a focus on the common good is paramount.

Hopper goes on to lament our current global trend which rewards hot-housed qualifications in favour of the hardworking endeavours of our economically sound ancestors.  In contrast to today’s executive, these fore bearers were prepared to work hard to make their way up the ladder of expertise to gain valuable shop floor experience before taking their place in the board room.

It appears the most significant shift in attitude came about in the 60s and 70s when managers became hired hands who no longer came up through the ranks but instead arrived with MBA’s from business schools who taught them to focus on deals and numbers. This new age administrative managerial authority entered the market place believing short term shareholder value was the executive’s number one goal and these values bred a culture which, at best, condoned individual self interest and in the case of the banks, whole heartedly embraced it. The move away from what was perceived as old fashioned Puritan ideologies led to “incompetence on an unprecedented scale that has extended over much of society” and is particularly rife in the banking industry today.

The worship of self interest was further fuelled by the expanding of a credit funded economy where ethical considerations within the banking fraternity were waived in favour of a promise of wealth creation for the masses. In reality this bubble of self-deception produced nothing of the sort and only widened the gap between rich and poor leaving the poor even poorer and high ranking banking executives with a taste for unprecidented riches. William Hopper says, “Banks that are seen as too big to fail are too big to regulate and therefore too big to live. I would add Lloyds and HBOS are also too big to know when they are flogging a dead horse or much less care about the impact their "double standard" acts of cruelty are having on my family.

No doubt it is also the reason HBOS were also too big to consider it worth their while to intervene and prevent the destruction of twenty two families lives when they learned, from the victims, long before the police made their arrests, of a long standing fraud which is now referred to as the HBOS Reading Scandal. I was once asked by a financially independent workaholic, “How much is enough?”It appears, for the powers that be within HBOS, the obscene multi million pound bonuses paid out year on year are still not enough to secure ethical policies, compassionate solutions and the forward thinking integrity of our Puritan forefathers. I can only wonder with trepidation, what it will actually take to affect the necessary shift in attitude when a credit crunch, which has been compared to an Atomic Bomb, has had little impact on how HBOS thinks and behaves.

It was Albert Einstein who once said "relativity applies to physics not ethics" and sadly  I can see this is precisely the case when it comes to the attitude of our casino  banksters who have without apology, brought this economy and my family to its knees.

Wisdom and Virtue

Although they say wisdom is knowing what to do next and virtue is doing it, I am hoping this week proves wisdom is also about knowing what not to do next.

During the last week I have made the decision not to do quite a lot.

•  I refused to have another Friends meeting purely to update the committee on how things are progressing with the Summer Ball. I made this decision on the basis that, had some members of the committee been helping me in the first place, they would not be in need of updating.  The consequence of making this decision has been to acquire some much needed time to complete some vital Ball related tasks only a handful of us stalwarts are prepared to progress.
• I declined our business banks proposal for us to enter an IVA to prevent the Bank of Scotland’s continued harassment. I did this on the basis I could not bring myself to do anything which would allow the Bank of Scotland’s heartless behaviour towards my family’s plight to go unnoticed. By making this decision I have, for the first time in three years, acquired a sense of dignity and purpose. By choosing to turn the tables on our oppressor it will be me taking the Bank of Scotland to task rather than them preying on my vulnerability.  
• I did not accept the Inland Revenues Capital Gains Tax calculations for back taxes owed over the last ten years.  I asked them to recalculate in the hope they would see my point view because I could not believe reason would not ultimately win the day.  After a two year battle I am relieved to report this has been the case. Being successful in this instance has given me a confidence in my abilities I have never enjoyed before. I cannot help but regard this by product as an immensely silvery lining to a very dark cloud which has hung over me for some time.
•  I have resisted, on behalf of my thirty year old daughter, the temptation to accept a job offer for less than the maximum advertised.  Knowing her prospective employers had advertised the pay at a higher amount, I could not see why my daughter should accept any less when she was offered the job.  By not jumping at their first proposal, my daughter secured a 6% pay increase as well as better hours from her new employers.
•  I have also refused to listen to any more of my lodger Darryl’s self obsessed hard luck stories.  Logic dictates, as I have never had trouble finding tenants in the past, I should easily be able to improve on Darryl in the future. Within twenty four hours of making this decision I achieved my objective and have given Darryl his marching orders.  This means I will no longer have to root out stinking fish from Darryl’s kitchen cupboard, wash unmentionable stains from his bedding or witness his excrement deposits on my cream carpets.

I cannot think of a better way to end the week!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Eighteenth century Irish statesman, author orator and political theorist Edmund Burke once said, "Bad things happen when good men do nothing" and I cannot help but wonder if over the last seventeen years of marriage my “doing nothing” was pivotal to our subsequent financial demise.  

When I retired from the financial services industry on grounds of ill health in 1998 I handed the bread-winning reins over to my husband, confident my financial reputation was safe in his hands.  At the time, I was half way through my pregnancy with our second child and suffering from exhaustion and chronic migraine brought on by over work, along with hypothyroidism and something which was later diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

At the age of forty and on the recommendation of my very supportive GP, I moved from a business life in the fast lane to one with my family and home at its center.  For the first two years we were supported by my accruals from the insurance industry and an income protection policy which paid out in the event of my ill health.  My husband was confident he could use the time provided by this short-term financial safety net to build a business using the capital we already had and in so doing take over the responsibility of providing for our family.  He showed me his figures for a ten year plan which involved selling our seven bedroom house together with my former matrimonial home to fund a “buy to let” portfolio which was to replace my income.  The balance from the sale was to provide seed money for a property development business he planned to run alongside the lettings business.  His research was extensive and his figures were both realistic and plausible. This supporting evidence, together with his track record for the successful refurbishment of two previous properties led me to believe I could relax into my role of housewife and mother for the first time in my adult life.  
  
Ten years on I was still basking in the knowledge my husband’s carefully constructed business plan had proved to be a successful one.  I was further encouraged to buy into the illusion of affluence when it was suggested we pay school fees well in advance so as to enjoy a discount. We enjoyed regular visits to our beautifully appointed apartment on the Costa Del Sol and commissioned a high quality finish for our sixteenth century grade two listed barn conversion which was to become our home. The sad and untimely demise my mother-in-law from Motor Neurone disease left my husband with additional capital of £200,000 in the summer of 2007 providing me with no reason to think we had any financial problems.

Within a year I discovered my husband was contemplating taking his own life with his shotgun and we were one million pounds in the red with not a single asset to our name.

When I exchanged my status as a business woman of integrity for the role of house wife and mother I had no reason to believe that, along with my financial integrity, I was giving up my right to make informed decisions about borrowings in my name.  Now, nearly three years on from the “Grand Opening,” I realize my husband made a permanently life changing decision when he risked my much valued reputation along without our home, our livelihood and our financial future and chose to withhold information from me about our joint borrowings. It is my belief he was suffering from mental health issues resulting from his unresolved grief following the long period of illness and the loss of two of his closest family members. Circumstances of which our lender and mortgage broker were both fully aware of at the time.

However, the Bank of Scotland had no such  excuse and they chose to remove my right to the information which could have saved my home and my financial reputation because I was married to the co- borrower. Instead, through unadulterated negligence, they joined forces with my unstable, grief stricken husband and set in motion a course of events which  I continue to pay the consequences of today.

Having made this enormous contribution to our financial demise the Bank of Scotland  now tell me it is I should who pick up the cost of their mistake. Before this act of gross negligence, I had a good reputation which was threatened by my husband’s bad judgement.  However, the ugly business practices of the Bank of Scotland have not only turned my family’s difficult circumstances into impossible ones, they have also relieved me of my financial reputation along with home and financial future and while it may well be true  bad things happen when good men do nothing, I have learned many things since finding myself in such unfortunate circumstances.  One of them is I am not, and never have been, comfortable with doing nothing.

These days I now find myself wondering what the going rate is for a reputation. To me it was priceless but it is almost certainly worth a lot more than a £217,000 shortfall.