Quatloos!

arayder wrote:The amazing thing is that Crawford YouTubed his way through the whole process without once, as far as I can see, really getting down to the nuts and bolts about what the dickens he and the misses were thinking when they decided to stop paying the mortgage.

Even the way they finally stopped paying was half arsed ...

"73. Mr Justice Phillips : Right. Paragraph 45 records that you stopped making payments
whilst the possession order was suspended on condition that you make payments.
74. Mr Crawford : No, the evidence is that we paid right to the very, very last month, and
plus an extra one on top of it.

If they really thought their obligation ended at the end of the mortgage term, why the "extra one on top"?

arayder wrote:The amazing thing is that Crawford YouTubed his way through the whole process without once, as far as I can see, really getting down to the nuts and bolts about what the dickens he and the misses were thinking when they decided to stop paying the mortgage.

Ditto the warrant. He talked incessantly about the warrant without ever clearly stating what the problem was, or why the warrant mattered when the issue of ownership was already settled.

Of course, Tom Crawford can't be clear or concise about anything, because doing so would reveal the weakness of his case. In that sense, he really did an amazing job of spinning his story. He managed to convince lots of people he was a victim of the mean ol' bank, when the truth was he simply stopped paying his obligations.

What in the blazes is wrong with these folks?

I think a sincere effort to work out an answer to this question is all that separates watching the antics documented here and elsewhere from going to Bedlam to watch the lunatics.

Granted, they do their best to publicise the antics, so it not really an invasion of privacy
but it would be good if some usable insights could come from the wealth of published material.

Some folks are simply financially illiterate. I have known adults who were dumbfounded to learn that the total payment of the loan on a $15,000 car amounted to more than $15,000.

When you think about it most folks eventually run into some sort of financial term or function they don't understand. Ya' gotta' figure it's better to ask, "What's that?" and "How does it work?" than to think you are going to embarrass yourself by asking stupid question. It's no problem anyway . . . I have yet to have a financial advisor look crossways at me because I didn't know a principle from a principal.

If I recall Crawford adopted a mortgage payment plan by which he paid only the interest. After a time he would be obligated to pay the principle. When that time came Tom just figured he'd paid enough. I figure he simply didn't know what was going on and didn't bother to ask. I suspect he had/has some sort of inferiority complex that won't allow him to admit he's ignorant about something.

I figure the way to make the interest only payment thing to work is to religiously invest money that's the difference between the interest only payment and a "full" payment. Before the call to pay the principle comes in you cash in your investment, pay the principle and keep the earnings from the investments.

Duh?

Siegfried Shrink wrote:

What in the blazes is wrong with these folks?

I think a sincere effort to work out an answer to this question is all that separates watching the antics documented here and elsewhere from going to Bedlam to watch the lunatics.

Also, just providing a contrary point of view. This site tends to figure prominently in Google searches for FMOTL gurus and concepts. I like to think that people curious about these things find us, and read some of the discussion here, before trying it themselves.

arayder wrote:Some folks are simply financially illiterate. I have known adults who were dumbfounded to learn that the total payment of the loan on a $15,000 car amounted to more than $15,000.

When you think about it most folks eventually run into some sort of financial term or function they don't understand. Ya' gotta' figure it's better to ask, "What's that?" and "How does it work?" than to think you are going to embarrass yourself by asking stupid question. It's no problem anyway . . . I have yet to have a financial advisor look crossways at me because I didn't know a principle from a principal.

If I recall Crawford adopted a mortgage payment plan by which he paid only the interest. After a time he would be obligated to pay the principle. When that time came Tom just figured he'd paid enough. I figure he simply didn't know what was going on and didn't bother to ask. I suspect he had/has some sort of inferiority complex that won't allow him to admit he's ignorant about something.

I figure the way to make the interest only payment thing to work is to religiously invest money that's the difference between the interest only payment and a "full" payment. Before the call to pay the principle comes in you cash in your investment, pay the principle and keep the earnings from the investments.

Duh?

At a certain time a common practice in England was pairing an interest only loan with a balloon payment with a separate endowment policy that would at least pay most if not all of the balloon payment and perhaps even a little more. It worked out that it more commonly worked out to a little less, and when they started coming due some shortfalls were normal. But it is important to mention that these shortfalls were small amounts relative to a mortgage, perhaps £10,000 or less and could be dealt with. Lenders would often follow up with borrowers a few years in advance to encourage borrowers to make some arrangement to cover these shortfalls, including what americans would call a re-finance. Very early in Tom's mortgage, he got a bit haphazard with his payments and missed a few or was late a few, but more importantly he quit paying the separate endowment, which led to the endowment being cashed out and applied to his mortgage (for a few hundred pounds). Tom knew this at least a year prior to his balloon payment being due, he asked for advice on one of the woo boards. The bank had in fact called it to his attention sometime before it came due, but he ignored their advice and indeed used their offer to convert his loan to a fully amortizing loan as the pretext for "they changed the loan", when he was arguing it exactly backwards. He yelled long and loud that the bank changed the loan and implied that he had an amortizing loan that the bank changed to an interest only loan without his consent, but in fact had an interest only loan and he refused to convert it when it would have been a manageable thing had he done so.

These type of loans are no longer common in England, mostly because of problems like this.

Gregg wrote:. . . Tom knew this at least a year prior to his balloon payment being due, he asked for advice on one of the woo boards. The bank had in fact called it to his attention sometime before it came due, but he ignored their advice and indeed used their offer to convert his loan to a fully amortizing loan. . .

Oh, like when your car won't run so you ask the drunked shade tree mechanic next door to help?

Like when you ask the stoner at the health food store what to do about that nasty mole on your back that used to be round but is now shaped like Ireland?

Like when your wife is too down to get out of bed after the birth of your second child so you go to the healing shop down the street and buy her a crystal?

This is the post he made 6 months before his balloon came due..

Tom Crawford wrote:Anyone help? if so here's our story, We moved to Nottingham 1988, 24 and a half years ago, and we bought a small house where we brought up 3 Kids, but now we are fighting to keep our house.
Bradford and Bingley messed up our mortgage, they changed it from an endowment without our instructions into an interest only in 1999, and now claim they lost our papers, now we've come to nearly the end of our mortgage and still owe all the money it cost in the first place, we have been chasing them for years to sort it, the six-month time period to contact the Ombudsman is also up as we didn't know there was a time limit. it has now come to a head, I caught cancer two years ago, we got behind with our mortgage as I was unable to work, so as a good customer they took us to court, but fortunately our family raised the money, but the Judge still kept a ruling that if we missed a payment B&B could repossess. Our question to you is can we send them a promissory note to clear our debts as we have only four months left in our house, will never rise that much money, if you have any ideas what we might be able to do, any help will be appreciated.
Thanks a lot Tom.

And though this demonstrates Tom knew he was in trouble ahead of time, it has several lies in it. Notice the they changed it from an endowment without our instructions into an interest only in 1999, and now claim they lost our papers, this is a misdirection. An Endowment is what it was and it was never changed. First, an Endowment is an interest only loan, and the bank offered in 1999, 16 years before it was due, to refinance it as an amortizing loan but Tom refused. The loan papers were never lost, Tom asked to see the "new" loan but since he had chose not to change it, there was no new loan to look at, the original loan was the one eventually foreclosed upon. Even when Tom wrote this, there were a lot of options left that might have let him keep the house or at least downsize with the equity he had accrued due to increased value. But he knew better. We know how that worked out for him.

Gregg wrote:. . .Tom knew he was in trouble ahead of time, it has several lies in it. . . Even when Tom wrote this, there were a lot of options left that might have let him keep the house or at least downsize with the equity he had accrued due to increased value. But he knew better. We know how that worked out for him.

Mentally healthy, emotionally resilient people can screw things up royally, take a deep breath and set things right without having a fatal blow delivered to their ego.

It seems to me Tom got himself in a jam and didn't have the mental and emotion strength to admit his mistake and move on. All he could do was pretend that it was all the bank's fault and he had plenty of people who wanted to feed his fantasy. As he dug the hole deeper by buying into still more woo it became more and more difficult for him to man up.

Resilient people have spouses die, lose family members, have their businesses close, go bankrupt, lose their homes and they pick themselves and get on with it. But all Tom had to do was work with the bank on a new finance plan. . .and that was too much for his weak little ego!

Boo who, Tommy.

arayder wrote:Some folks are simply financially illiterate. I have known adults who were dumbfounded to learn that the total payment of the loan on a $15,000 car amounted to more than $15,000.

When you think about it most folks eventually run into some sort of financial term or function they don't understand. Ya' gotta' figure it's better to ask, "What's that?" and "How does it work?" than to think you are going to embarrass yourself by asking stupid question. It's no problem anyway . . . I have yet to have a financial advisor look crossways at me because I didn't know a principle from a principal.

If I recall Crawford adopted a mortgage payment plan by which he paid only the interest. After a time he would be obligated to pay the principle. When that time came Tom just figured he'd paid enough. I figure he simply didn't know what was going on and didn't bother to ask. I suspect he had/has some sort of inferiority complex that won't allow him to admit he's ignorant about something.

I figure the way to make the interest only payment thing to work is to religiously invest money that's the difference between the interest only payment and a "full" payment. Before the call to pay the principle comes in you cash in your investment, pay the principle and keep the earnings from the investments.

Duh?

That's what, in theory, the endowment policy was for. As I understand it, it was essentially a life insurance policy. If Tom died, the death benefit would pay off the mortgage. If he lived, the increasing cash value would have (again, in theory) been enough to repay the principle, when the balloon payment came due.

Unfortunately, Tom and Sue, for some never-explained reason, stopped making the premium payments on the policy a year or two after the loan was taken. The insurance company then paid the little cash value he had, something on the order of 175 pounds, to the lender, which did reduce the principle. As far as I know that was the last that was ever paid toward the principle.

In reality, I believe that these endowment mortgages did not, overall, perform as well as expected and many borrowers who paid the premiums diligently, still found themselves short of funds when the balloon went up.

I believe there was a time when endowments more or less worked. What changed was the tax concessions and the markets, By the 90s there were doubts about the performance and predicted payouts fell. Lenders naturally want to see their money back at the end of mortgage terms and so started checking on their clients' situations, make changes to meet repayment figures. This is what happened to Tom in 1998 or 1999. The B&B would be working through all the IO mortgages checking for a vehicle to repay the capital and contacting people where necessary.

arayder wrote:What in the blazes is wrong with these folks?

I think there are four possibilities:

1. Greed
2. Stupidity
3. Insanity
4. All of the above

Add:

5) Anti-authoritarian.

The Observer wrote:Add:

5) Anti-authoritarian.

Add:

6) The unwillingness or inability to accept that it was their own fault

arayder wrote:
What in the blazes is wrong with these folks?

1. Greed
2. Stupidity
3. Insanity
4. Anti-authoritarian
5. Unwilling/unable to accept responsibility
6. Narcissistic Personality Disorder
7. Psychopathic/sociopathic
8. Dunning-Kruger Syndrome

At the risk of repeating myself I'd say they lack resiliency.

They don't really believe in themselves. When you look into all the personality problems the last several posts have attributed to them you see that most of those personality types lack self confidence.

I think they figure they can't make their way in the world. Consequently, they won't try to live lives of purposeful hard work or engage in intelligent money management.

They rationalize their theft by saying the victims are big businesses, banks, lending organizations and governments who can take the lost and deserve being cheated.

I'd say they suffer from over-confidence. They have done things that I would simply be too scared to try myself, knowing in a million years I'd never pull it off. They, on the other hand, don't seem to worry about the consequences, and even when they are suffering consequences from their idiotic decisions, only see their current predicament as temporary. Since they now have the ebil gubmint right where they want them, their new cunning plan will save the day.

He Who Knows wrote:

arayder wrote:
What in the blazes is wrong with these folks?

1. Greed
2. Stupidity
3. Insanity
4. Anti-authoritarian
5. Unwilling/unable to accept responsibility
6. Narcissistic Personality Disorder
7. Psychopathic/sociopathic
8. Dunning-Kruger Syndrome

And a fanatical devotion to being a dope.