Banks: give you an umberella when its sunny and take it back when it rains

Samuel Clemens (aka Tom Sawyer) brought us the quote which is the title of this post, ‘banks give you an umbrella when its sunny out and take it back when it rains’, his simply worded expression held as true in Missouri of the late 1800’s as it does today.

Recently we had a client who is on an interest only mortgage, their circumstances have changed right when their interest only period was about to run out, naturally we suggested that they ask for a continuance of an interest only period, while this won’t work down the capital amount owed it will keep their cash flow alive and if you have to chose between owing more and being unable to pay then the former is preferable. Sitting in a pot might not sound great but it beats the raw fire.

The bank were happy to comply and they sent out a letter, it was at this …

Read More →

A time for brokers to stand up for themselves.

Personal Touch Financial Services in the U.K. is going to put up a ‘Rogues Gallery’ on their website in order to criticise lenders who are directly undercutting the broker market. What is starting to surface in the UK is a price structure that embraces the ‘Direct Model’ rather than the ‘Independent Model’, what this means is that banks would rather have people call directly into their branch or ring them on their 1850-McCallCentre line rather than see a market that is dominated by independent advice. One of the main reasons is that they can juice Joe Public even more.

Recently Ulster Bank withdrew completely so that it can ‘cross-sell customers other high-margin products, like credit cards and overdrafts’ [quote sourced from Independent.ie]. It would be fair comment that if they got the mortgage via a broker they would probably not get the chance cross sell these products, and this is therefore the main reason for any bank to leave the broker market or to try and compete with brokers using such …

Read More →

Mortgage Fraud. A story of collusion and a closer look at Thomas Byrne and Michael Lynn

Michael Lynn is making headlines, for ripping off the banks, to the tune of fifty million euro! yes, thats €50,000,000!!! What an astronomical rip-off! Not even the Northern Bank robbers got away with that much, and more to the point Michael Lynn will either not face jail, or go to an open prison or some other shamble that is meant to represent ‘imprisonment’. The fact is that crime does actually pay, especially white collar crime.

I have to say ‘hats off’ to Mr. Lynn though… I mean, how the hell did he pull that off? My first suspicion is that part of the way he did it was bank greed, I know what most people have to go through in order to secure finance, there is no way of lying your way through it, however, some people are ‘special’ clients, and I don’t mean they catch a short bus. They get treated differently, endless lines of credit, think Nick Leeson, think Barings Bank (although he was a trader not a borrower).

Now we hear that Michael Lynn is a fugitive. …

Read More →