Bankers - with a capital W

So at last peace has returned to the house. The student finished her placement today something which has been a huge success Despite everything they have tried she has decided not to apply for the job. They could not let her go though and made her a trustee of the organisation instead. I am really proud of her and her assessment report could have been better, I don't know how, but there must be something.

My own day has not been wasted, I have been sorting out money matters. Some of you will remember that we put the house on the market just as the market smashed into the buffers. Since then we have restructured and re thought. The house next door has been the The final heave lots of money thrown at it and it is nearly ready to sell. Finishing it would cost a bit more than we have and so we presented a financial case to the bank who said a resounding no. They said we could not afford more on the mortgage but we could have it on a personal loan over half the time at ten times the interest.

So we complained to the bank who listened to our complaint, said fair enough, apply for a mortgage again and then turned us down.

The fly in the ointment being a particularly nice individual who seems to have really taken a dislike to us. So today I asked him if we could place a charge on the house from a second lender, he didn't answer or, i suggested split the deeds creating two houses one of which we could sell. He said the bank would not allow us to do that as they would not have as much equity to protect them.

Now lets add some scale here if we split the place up the farmhouse bit would be worth about twice the mortgage ad the rest roughly 4 times the mortgage. So as the independent financial advisor put it there would be a bit of a cushion.

No, said the man from the bank, we would not be allowed by them to do that. Could not possibly allow us to sell bits of the place they held the charge they were in charge.

So in went plan B; switch the whole mortgage to another provider and finish the job and sell.

So I phoned my solicitor to instruct them and nearly fell off the chair. The bank has no control over what I do so long as there is something left worth enough to cover the charge.

The place is actually in my name so tonight I suggested to the student I sell her everything bar the derelict cottage and the field below worth pretty much what the mortgage is worth, for a fiver and then stop paying the mortgage. The they could repossess that and then if we hadn't written the deed for it right we might find it had no right to draw water. or maybe there was a foot of the drive over which it had no rights meaning it did not connect to the road..

The sort of thing that means whilst it's worth money the only way to be worth that money means lots of lawyers and fees and maybe putting in a whole new drive.

Clever student spotted the flaw, we have a joint mortgage, now of course this begs the next question how did she get a mortgage on a property that's not hers.  You tell me!!!

All in all i think the bank has screwed up big style, we are off to see another provider Monday morning but not without having phoned head office who seemed a bit bewildered about the whole thing.

I am sure he can explain,    

If all else fails he can  lie - just like he did to me......