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Facing eviction by Christmas, by publicly owned banks with no public service ethos

Trust me I'm a banker - BBC ScotlandWhen because of the bankers’ crash RBS, Lloyds, Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley went bust and were taken over by the State, one of the worst indictments of the Blair-Brown governments – copied and exacerbated further by this current Tory government – was that the losses were borne by the taxpayers, but they continued to be organised and managed as though they were still in the private sector.

That was the rule operated when RBS and Lloyds were taken over in 2008-9, at a direct hit for taxpayers in bailing them out at £68bn (let alone the subsequent hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ money disbursed on loan guarantees, special liquidity schemes and asset protection schemes). But rather than treat them as state-purchased assets to be managed in the national interest, an artificial quango was appointed under the title of UK Financial Instruments to act instead as executors in their commercial interest until they could be returned at the earliest possible moment to the private sector.

And who did the managing of this strictly commercial transition? Who else but members of the senior banking class who brought about the crash in the first place, plus senior mandarins from the Treasury who had failed to see the warning signs to prevent the crash from happening in the first place.

Now a similar story is unfolding in the housing market. Hundreds of elderly fraud victims now face eviction by Christmas because they were double-crossed several years ago into selling their homes to companies on the promise that they could continue living in them. Many were in dire financial straits at the time and were told that in return for selling their houses at knockdown prices they could enjoy a discounted rent for life.

It later emerged that the sale-and-rent-back companies bought the properties with mortgages from lenders who were unaware of the promises made to the former owners. The buyers later defaulted on the mortgages and the previous owners, who thought they had lifetime tenancies, were then horrified to find that the lenders had begun possession proceedings.

Then capitalism in all its ugliness showed its face. When the original owners went to court to try to assert their rights, the judgement handed down was that the property rights of the lenders took priority over their claim to retain their home and not be evicted with two weeks’ notice just before Christmas.

Then it became clear that Mortgage Express, taken into state ownership in 2008 and now run by UK Asset Resolution (UKAR), a holding company set up by the government, was behaving like the worst of the private sector. The evictions, in many cases of disabled people or kidney patients with dialysis, as many as several hundred across Britain, are still going ahead.

Image credit: BBC Scotland

One Comment

  1. jeffrey davies says:

    but you havent mentioned osbourne or carney who fiddle the figures ready for another fall yet this was allowed by both governments to happen isnt it strange when those plebs who bought their houses listened to banksters now find themselves homeless isnt about time you jailed the lot of the criminals who brought this about whilst allowing these poor people to live their lifes wirhout worrying about being thrown out jeff3

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