Captain Coma

The downside of this abundance, of course, is that your bargain rental secured from a desperate landlord might be seized from under you by the bank as it repossesses the property. In the old days the landlord and agent would demand references and bona fides from the renter. Now, it is the other way around, and anyone contemplating a new AST should demand assurances that the landlord is good for the length of the tenancy. Beware the BTL landlord!

Looks like they brought it on themselves, buying such a lemon off the Mafia as they did. Hardly a mention of "Household Bank Illinois Operations" anywhere. The 'code of silence' lingering on even now. That is till you google: the mafia Household Bank Illinois Operations ...Going down the list pressing the "Cached" button. THEN you get some understanding of what has been going on. "William Colby, who had been Director of Central Intelligence from 1973-1976, continued on after 1980 as the overseer of the new name, Household International". "AMERICAN HERITAGE SAVINGS & LOAN ASSOCIATION. Reportedly used in part for washing CIA covert funds, the collapsed shell of what was left was merged and taken over by Household Bank". The more you dig, the murkier the waters get!. The Mafia and CIA made their money, laundered Billions, syphoning Billions for black op's to fund huge covert operations. A merger here, a merger there, squeeky clean major banks, (or those with a reputation for one) legitimising previous goings on by wholesale acquisition. A patsy came along, and was sold off to the HSBC suckers. And I bet it's still going on within HSBC, all part of their 2003 acquisition deal. It's all going on, criminality is right at the heart of the current crisis. Criminality, Criminal organisations and Governments. Where does the one end and the other begin!!. My God, are you saying that HSBC were suckered into buying all the CIA's old, defunct shell companies they'd kept going since Air America et al. had folded (I wondered what happened to all that stuff at the end of the 1970s)? Colby involved as well, hey? Oh dear. Do you have any more on this? It suddenly looks a whole lot more interesting!

Quite so, and also think how nervous government ministers must be feeling about setting a precedent if Brown decides to strip Goodwin of some pension rights. If incompetence really can be punished ex post facto, then the NuLab crowd must be scared of cutting their own throats. The gods of irony are awakening!

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi...icle5813493.ece Now, this is potentially dynamite. What if Goodwin was not the only catastrophic exec to take early retirement and benefit from NewLabour's kamikaze largesse? The Times raises the question and, revealingly (or not) Lloyds is refusing to answer the question ... What are the odds, folks? If these two piggies are also in the double pension money, there will be a bloody revolution. Myners to resign pronto?

How long before private pensions are nationalised, Argentina stylee? They might have to ...

Fantastic.

Hold on, I agree with you - bait and switch from the bankers, the biggest heist in history ... but surely inflation erodes debts and benefits debtors. I believe the banksters wanted everyone in huge debt - and didn't mind lending on vastly overpriced assests, since even if they fell (thinking of property) the borrower would lose equity/deposit and still be in hock to the lender - nice stream of interest-income for the banks forever and borrowers reduced to penury for the foreseeable. What the banks didn't foresee was the extent of the crash, which wiped out equity and presented them with an absolute loss, and also the end of cheap wholesale money, which put the banks in exactly the same position as their benighted borrowers. Inflation is the debtor's friend, though, surely.

Hear, hear, +1

Edmund Conway - just up on the Telegraph site. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/finance...ay-experts.html I love this bit:

Are you quite sure you are a bull? You sound more like one of us!

Ah, but he was ... I think Elaine over at Culture of Life News has dug up some interesting stuff. She looks closely at an outfit called Gibraltar Securities. Apparently Madoff's mother was de-listed by the SEC after running some dodgy brokering operation in the early 1960s (on behalf of Madoff Snr or the mob ...), but it might still be going, laundering and what-not for Madoff Jnr - could explain where his trades were at perhaps? The media ain't on to this yet ... http://emsnews.wordpress.com/2009/01/17/al...bles/#more-1058

Oh, I like that, well done. Touch of the Corleones about it!

I think it's this ... Yes, a determined cover-your tracks-and-pose-as-OO-but-let-out-your-property accidental landlord might think of re-directing mail, but then again might not (and re-direction ain't permanent), but let's admit that one is dealable with. The other, the insurance, I think is a condition in the contract of the mortgage, such that the lender must be certain to be indemnified if the house burns down. Insurer won't pay out unless it's the owner's place of residence, so if you are letting you need a more serious and more expensive policy (insurers are wise to the fact that tenants are less likely to cherish the property than the owner is). Even if the accidental landlord is diligent enough to do this - and how many would even think of it? - it's a possibility that the financial records would alert the lender that the policy was changed and they'd be on to you. Lots of house insurance is also taken out with the lender, of course (sometimes a condition of the mortgage itself). The point of the original article is that accidental landlords will have to be very professional (and comply with safety sandards and energy ratings and now God knows what else) not to come a horrific cropper in the small print, let alone the big print. Letting out your falling asset, in other words, ain't the panacea increasing numbers of desperate ALs think it is.

Two points: First, tenant will know that the landlord is on an OO mortgage because correspondence will be sent from mortgagee to tenant's adress. Second, owner's property insurance is void if not owner living there. Oops.

Restricts supply only temporarily until amateur landlords have lost even more money while trying to rent out, then suffer forced sales. Sorry.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/persona...-landlords.html These are rentals coming on the market that weren't supposed to be BTLs, but are now going into competition with them. Not sure who suffers most out of those two groups, but it's good news for renters and great news for houseprices in a flat spin.

End of the year all the banks are bust, the gov is the only lender and we're through the looking glass. You heard it here first.

That is so cool.

True! Voice like a foghorn, laughing open mouthed at her own "witticisms". And a house in Leigh on Sea for 300 grand? You should be able to buy Leigh on Sea for that.

Life is hard. Reminds me of the old joke: what is an Eskimo toilet? A hole in the ice and a stick. The stick is for beating off the polar bears.

Apparently that's the Shaolin method. Knife just bounces straight off and then you're supposed to catch it in your teeth. Of course, it takes years of practise ...

I thought it was Gordon's way of preparing us for 20% unemployment. He's still being over-optimistic. Ahoy-hoy

OT Durch, but what happened to that thread of yours about loving not having a house. I was reading it on Sunday night and when I clicked to go to page 2 it just disappeared completely. I checked your posts and threads list and everything had gone.

Sounds cheap, but remember that bullet-proof glass is expensive.

How can somebody begin a new thread with his first post? You have to apply for approval from the mods for that concession. Are they letting anybody who joins up do it now? If so, prepare for the forum to be flooded with cr@p.