The Crawfords Keep Looking For A Unicorn

[letissier14]

To be fair to Craig, he is helping others out less fortunate than him.

You shouldn't knock someone for actually helping others in this way.

[radcliffewreck]

Craig the businessman gets himself in the national paper for doing a good deed. Good for him. His business interests included running a Ghost Hunt. I wonder if he could also organise a Unicorn hunt.......


The Mirror is a national paper :

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/s ... ts-section

Looks like the storey has been directly lifted from the Nottingham News

https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/not ... 1534062700


In the comments section of the Nottingham News someone has helpfully left this :

Hmmm Craig Crawford... the guy who helped his dad loose his home, used to run a dodgy affiliate earning site and now runs what looks like a dodgy site allowing access to illegal streams via Roku....if he is helping out then it's to either get his name in the paper or for some other benefit to him and not the person he is helping.

That will be me that left that comment, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the whole thing is made up just to advertise his business.

Looks like that comment in the Post has been removed .

[daveBeeston]

To be fair to Craig, he is helping others out less fortunate than him.

You shouldn't knock someone for actually helping others in this way.

If he genuinely is helping people then fair play to him, I however have doubts that this is the case and that it's a way of getting himself in the paper, I know a few people who live in Carlton who are very active in their community and they know nothing about this other than what's in the paper.

[notorial dissent]

Craig of the Family Crawfraud doesn't seem to have even the semblance of a past track record of civic mindedness so this sudden burst would seem to be at the very least suspicious and suspect, and since, as far as I know, all of his past efforts have been of the more morally and ethically suspect variety the question does come to mind.

[hucknallred]

Interesting piece here from Martin Lewis (UK Money Saving guru) about Mortgage prisoners.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/ ... ge-prison/

Despite his total misunderstanding of interest only & his FMOTL nonsense, it seems as a UKAR (ex B&B) customer, he was one of these folks on a high interest mortgage. As he had arrears before he went freeman he would have struggled to remortgage elsewhere I suspect.

[mufc1959]

Tom wasn't a mortgage prisoner. He had an interest-only mortgage which had reached the end of its term and he had no means to repay the capital.

Mortgage prisoners are customers with existing mortgages taken out between 2003-2008 whose lenders are now 'closed book', so they're no longer able to offer any new products, leaving their borrowers on SVR. The borrowers, whether they have arrears or a 100% clean repayment record, aren't able to meet the stricter lending criteria now in place since the financial crisis, so they're unable to move to a new lender and are stuck on SVR with B&B, NRAM, etc., which in many cases is pushing them into financial hardship.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

Tom wasn't a mortgage prisoner. He had an interest-only mortgage which had reached the end of its term and he had no means to repay the capital.

There is also evidence, supplied by the chief muppet himself, that the building society contacted them about this ahead of time and he or his wife either ignored or cancelled the repayments and tried the "imagine my shock when..." defence when it reached the end of its term.

[Normal Wisdom]

Tom's problem was created by Tom. He (or more likely Sue) stopped paying the premiums on their endowment policy in 1991. Nobody knows why but I suspect it was because they were struggling financially and neither of them understood why they needed a policy with an insurance company or how an endowment worked. It is also unclear whether Royal London or B&B pointed out the implications of the Crawford's decision at the time.

When I took out my endowment mortgage it was compulsory to have an endowment policy to repay the principle at the end of the loan period. It was common to go with the company recommended by the lender but there was nothing to stop me finding another provider. Similarly I guess there was no reason why Tom shouldn't cancel his policy but it was up to him to ensure he had another way of repaying the principle at the end of the mortgage period. He didn't.

Some time later, Sue popped into their local B&B branch with a query on their mortgage only to be reminded that as things stood their loan would not be repaid at the end of the term. Of course Tom didn't understand why. At that point he had religiously been making the required payment to B&B every month and as far as he was concerned that meant that he was "paying his mortgage". He had no idea that he was only paying the interest on the loan.

In the ensuing explosion of ignorance, misunderstanding and pig-headedness, Tom got it fixed in his mind that he had been the victim of some kind of fraud and rejected any advice on how to resolve the issue i.e. by converting the endowment into a repayment mortgage so that the principle would be paid off alongside the interest.

Towards the end of the loan period he was again outraged to be told that he still owed the whole of the amount that he had originally borrowed. By this time, there was a new manager at his local B&B and little understanding of what had gone on in the past. There was careless talk of the endowment policy being "lost", probably because nobody could understand why someone would cancel a policy without making any provision to repay the principle.

That led to complaints, court cases and eventually GOODF and the path to the search for the unicorn.

[NYGman]

Perfect summation of the most likely truth derived from the snips of information gleaned over the years from documents, court appearances, posts by Crawford family and their defenders.

Tom's is a tragedy of his own making which could have been avoided had he not been greedy, if he had just taken some of the good advice he did receive along the way. You know all the ways he could have legitimately solved his problem but would have either required him to pony up some more money to pay for the money he borrowed to buy his house or to sell the house for far in excess of the loan and use the windfall to get something he could afford. Rather than pay up, he rolled the dice with a pair of FMOTL loaded dice for a free home, and crapped out. Really is the great example of the old phase, you can't get something for nothing.

[aesmith]

I am surprised that cancelling the endowment policy in 1991 didn't trigger more attention from Bradford and Bingley. I'm just going by my own experience but for example when we moved house in 1996 endowment mortgages were still being promoted as the best way to go, and B&B was an apparently healthy mainstream high street lender. They were still mutual at that time.

I think it wasn't until after 2000 that endowments started to fall into disrepute, and at time the lenders started to distance themselves. For example when we remortgaged in 2001 Lloyds just took our word about the endowment and didn't require details of the policy or to have their interest noted.

[ArthurWankspittle]

Two points about the endowment - it was only 3 years old when it was cancelled. The only person who said it was lost was Tom, IIRC.

[notorial dissent]

The thing to remember here is we are talking about Tom et al here. He, and his family have been nothing if not consistent throughout this whole affair. Lying and being generally unpleasant.

Now throughout this whole sorry saga there have actually been a few actual truths that came out of the mouths of the first hand participants. They actually did live wherever(I don't remember where and am too lazy and uninterested to look it up, alright) it was they claim they did. The Crawfords were married and had two kids. Tom was an itinerant carpet layer. They took out an endowment mortgage to buy Casa Crawford. They, Tom and the Mrs, were both informed of the fail and discontinuance of the annuity and knew about it. They(she) later told them to cancel and cash out the annuity, which they did. They were also informed that there would be a shortfall on the mortgage at conclusion. They quit paying on the mortgage when it reached maturity.

They admitted/stated all these things at one point or another until it was pointed out that it made them look bad and detracted from their story of being used and abused and lied to and taken advantage of. Since then, nary a true word has been spoken by any of the parties.

The facts are, they had an annuity mortgage, annuity failed, they cancelled it, they paid on mortgage until maturity then quit. Mortgage went in to foreclosure. Lots of nonsense. Crawfords got tossed out on their asses. They have whined a lot, retconned history, a lot, still out of the house and it has sold at least three times since their departure. The one happy note, Betty the chicken moved on to happier climes.

[MaritalArtist]

. They quit paying on the mortgage when it reached maturity.

Yep, I remember that Judge Godsmark referring to this as Tom's "fatal error" In his judgment.

[notorial dissent]

. They quit paying on the mortgage when it reached maturity.

Yep, I remember that Judge Godsmark referring to this as Tom's "fatal error" In his judgment.

One of many, but certainly the one with the most lasting effect.

[ArthurWankspittle]

The sequence was more like:
1988 Took out endowment mortgage
1991 Stopped paying endowment - this was a bad time economically in the UK
1998/9 B&B point out no repayment vehicle and what are you going to do? Tom decides not to take any action
2013 Mortgage term ends with capital outstanding. SHTF.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

In 2000 the then Financial Services Authority (in reality still the Securities and Investment Board) mandated that all lenders had to write red, orange and green letters to their customers telling them the status of their mortgage endowments, so he wasn't just told the once. It was the wilful disregard that sunk him.

[aesmith]

In 2000 the then Financial Services Authority (in reality still the Securities and Investment Board) mandated that all lenders had to write red, orange and green letters to their customers telling them the status of their mortgage endowments, so he wasn't just told the once. It was the wilful disregard that sunk him.

I'm pretty sure it was the insurance company that sent those letters, and they wouldn't have sent them out to the former holder of a cancelled policy.

[HardyW]

The sequence was more like:
1988 Took out endowment mortgage
1991 Stopped paying endowment - this was a bad time economically in the UK
1998/9 B&B point out no repayment vehicle and what are you going to do? Tom decides not to take any action
2013 Mortgage term ends with capital outstanding. SHTF.

I refer the noble Moderator to the detailed timeline (sorely in need of updating) provided by his goodself here.

[Hercule Parrot]

I refer the noble Moderator to the detailed timeline (sorely in need of updating) provided by his goodself here.

Oh, that was a lovely nostalgic read. They were golden times, back when we had Betty working on the inside.

[letissier14]

Despite some of the riff-raff and undesirables that used to frequent Tom Crawfords local pub, the Elwes Arms, some people do work hard and pay their way and make a success of their life.

https://www.nottinghampost.com/whats-on ... o4CoVKwFk4