The Taxpayer, aka, Northern Rock Asset Management is to hand back some £270m to 152,000 customers. Apparently the Taxpayer wasn’t used to running a Bank and forgot to print on the statements the amount of the original loan; this meant that it was illegal to charge interest for the loan of the Taxpayers money – so we’ll be foregoing any interest that we should have received, and handing it back to the mortgagee in time for Christmas – an average of £1,775 a piece……
Just as a matter of interest - most of those loans were for less than £25,000 each. Not the sort of sum that buys a salubrious pile in South East England, more the sort of sum that you might associate with the purchase of a heavily discounted council flat in Middlesbrough. Exactly the sort of business that Northern Rock once specialised in.
Given the amount of unemployment currently being endured by unskilled workers in parts of the country that might have property for sale in that price region, even allowing for heavy discounting, I do wonder how many of those loans we were effectively receiving our money back on anyway.
‘Support for Mortgage’ (otherwise known as ‘the Taxpayer pays your mortgage for you’, similar to the scheme we operate for MPs) payments are still available to those receiving pension credits, job seekers allowance or income support. This is normally paid direct to the mortgage company.
Will these Christmas bonuses all go direct to the mortgagee, or will those paid for by the Taxpayer be returned to the taxpayer?
Your starter for ten….
Ms Raccoon lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France, renowned for its fine wines and gourmet food, so she frequently finds better things to do than sit in front of a computer all morning. She is liable to take off traveling at a moment's notice. Consequently this blog only gets updated these days when it is raining - and it doesn't rain very often round here...
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And folk used to marvel at ‘Reaganomics’ in America – he was just a novice.
I doubt this would have happened at all if it had been called ‘Southern Rock’…
For which taxpayers could take ‘Southern Comfort’
Et tu Anna?
Get off Middlesbrough’s back.
Perhaps worth noting in that BBC report: “The mistakes pre-date the separation of Northern Rock plc and Northern Rock Asset Management.”
This appears to mean prior to 2010… ie…… another Brown Balls Cock-up.
The BBC must remain politically impartial however, so of course George Osborne must take the rap instead.
And who’s going to be fired for this £270m cock-up ? I’ll not be holding my breath.
Support for mortage interest, actually. It’s designed to prevent people losing their homes and then having to claim housing benefit. According to the Shields Gazette the problem is due to incorrect drafting of some letters which omitted the legal bits. In other words, standard operating cock up for the banking and financial services sector.
Um, while I’m appalled at the loss of tax payers money…..I was a northern rock customer. So……
…..chrimbo drinks may be on me!
We are Taxpayers. We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.
As a tax payer, who has never claimed a penny, I am one quarter furious that such a mistake was made, but if I’m honest, three quarters thrilled that I may get some money back. The ridiculous thing is that I only paid what I thought I owed. I didn’t over-pay. So, while I’m not going to refuse to accept it, because there’s no point, I shall have to think of a way to pay it forward..after buying drinks all round of course
And who is taking responsibility for this cock up and offering his/her resignation? Let me guess…..er…..nobody
So the taxpayer funds another private sector cock-up. No news there then. A shame the money can’t be clawed back from the overpaid executives who earned such huge sums to supposedly ensure the correct running of the bank. In the same way I suspect the $1.9 billion fine levied on HSBC won’t come out of the pockets of those who gave the green light to money laundering. expect their account charges to go up in the New Year.
Just to keep things in proportion however, the £1,775 per person which, with the flimsiest of conjecture, you suggest is going to unemployed people in the North is a drop in the ocean compared with the minimum £108,000 gift to be received by millionaire earners. (By your logic, these are mostly in work and living in the South). Since government money must come from somewhere, this gift is coming courtesy of those paying increased VAT, having wages frozen again or the thousands who are disabled and out of work and having their living allowance slashed.
I expect the 45,000 customers who have already repaid their loans, are part of the Southern Diaspora, slumming it in Middlesbrough.
Personally, I am much too obsessed with on what to fritter my £10 Pensioner’s Christmas Bonus to worry about it.
Correction please, it’s Northern Wreck…
Yawwwwwn, the government pissed away £270,000,000 yesterday, it’s not even very remarkable anymore-17 comments.
To answer the question-since the letter was presumably to the mortgagee, and since their ‘uman rites or somesuch to be told how much the original mortgage was, (because most people seem to throw away their mortgage after they receive a copy but even if they don’t throw it away, how can the peoples bank expect them to retreive a copy from the accordion file?) they deserve to some compo.
In liebourland nearly everybody gets compo, and everybody who gets compo votes liebour. And hey, it’s tax money, plenty more where that came from.
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