Help with a surreal world

nannyknowbest

Hi everyone, I have just joined this board and need support as much as help.
My name is Paul BTW - non Nanny.

Until this time last year, I would have considered myself to be fairly well off and in control of our finances - then, along cam HBOS to screw my bank or 15 years or so - LLoyds TSB.

We run several businesses and, in the context of what I am asking, it is important that I detail them a little.

The first and, certainly the most profitable, is that we own just short of £2M of properties (most bought around a decade ago), our estimated equity (I have just had them valued for sale) is roughly £1M after mortgages.
We own a 32 bed Backpacker's Hostel at the seaside that is very popular.
We ran (I have had to hibernate this one) an on-line distribution company as well.

In short, our asset base is massive (our own house is valued at £385,000 with a mortgage of £180,000) and our businesses WERE all profitable and exceeding expectations.

THEN, in October of last year, we approached Lloyds to increase our borrowings to expand the on-line business and to clear unsecured borrowings (at that point around £45K), as we had done may times in the past and always repaid. For this, they required further security (our borrowings at that time were £164K against security of £300K) and, as we were asking for a further £70K, I saw no problem with this - business was good, we were trading profitably on all fronts and the future looked good. We also discussed the possible purchase of another property to renovate and rent out - the cost of which would be covered by the additional security and a first charge on the new property.
All was agreed and we expected it all to go through in the next week or so.

At the time (being a belt and braces man) I also had 4 other offers of the finance on the table, in case Lloyds said no - and I told them as much (mainly to get the interest as good as I could - 2% above BOI base). A month passed and no money, although we were assured that all was OK.

To this day, they have not said no in so many words. The next thing we knew (about 3 months later), we received a formal demand for the return of the £30K overdraft (by now at the limit) and, in the same post, a letter saying that "we are pleased to extend an overdraft of £30K" - on the same account. I phoned my business manager and asked !!!!!! was going on and he knew nothing about either letter (even though both bore a copy of his signature - he was NOT happy).
I wrote 7 letters (all delivered by hand) asking what was going on - and received no reply.
Being truly angry bunny by this point, I contacted the Daily Mail in response to an article at the time about how small businesses were being shafted by the very banks we were bailing out and, they immediately said yes and, in January of this year, carried a full page article describing my plight. I told them what I knew and gave them my full permission to demand whatever details and history from Lloyds as they wished - which they did.
To say that the brown mucky stuff hit the fan would be an understatement of massive proportions. I received a very curt call from a group board director (at 7am on a Sunday) asking me "what I thought I was doing"? - my reply "just what you have been doing to me for months - actually" did not go down well.

Since then, the bank have simply not known how to deal with me. I have, on a number of occasions, organised finance to repay them and stop the inevitable crash of our credit rating - and, on each occasion, the new lenders have been ignored and the letters have all been "lost" - causing each attempt at recapitalisation to fail. In short, they have stolen £500K of MY equity, to secure a debt of £164K and done it in a way that ensures that I cannot repay it.

DESPITE their best efforts and ignoring the fact that, in March I broke my back and can't walk without help, all of our mortgages are up to date and the Backpacker's hostel is flourishing. I have also contacted all credit card lenders and it looks as if we can settle at around 20% of the account values - so there is a bit of a bonus.

Having discovered last week that my back will never recover (the nerves are broken), I have decided to simply sell up everything we own apart from our main house.

I have written to Lloyds and informed them of this and suggested a method whereby they can get most of what they want and I can get all of what I want.

My question is -

If they simply ignore me (as they have in the past), other than going to the daily nationals again (which WILL provoke a battle of litigation that I neither have the time or the energy to do any more) - has anyone got any suggestions how I can extract myself from this surreal world I now find myself in?

I know and they know that they have acted unlawfully. I know and they know that, if I could release the capital they have stolen (it IS theft under common law), I could demand massive compensation - but they are not going to let that happen any time soon - it could bring the bank down.

I just need help and suggestions as to how I can break this impasse and move forward. Most of our Lloyds accounts are actually still working - which I find bizarre in the extreme.

In my situation, I don't need to know what I can do, I merely want to !!!!!! off and enjoy the year or, at the most, 2 that I have before I can't walk any more and, to do that, I need the money that the bank has stolen from me.

Any suggestions?

Complicated 'ain't it?

Paul

RAS

Stop hand delivering letters and send a formal complaint registered post. When they fail to sort it, start with the FOS and OFT.