Bank of England’s 1% rate

I have a major dilemma.

I can pay off my mortgage with the then Abbey National today, or for the last couple of weeks, due to various payments on the companies restructuring.

But, it is a tracker mortgage at 0.6% above base rate (so will move to 1.6%). Given that it is almost 19 years into the mortgage, the change in bank rate results in a barely a generous round in a pub’s worth of change in my monthly payments.

Now with mother’s illness, she may soon have to go into a home, self-financed (but preferably via the council, as that is a lot cheaper for the same quality). However, parents home is my last chance to get a house with garden, so I need to manoeuver matters as much as I can do ensure this. My brother understands, and, like me, does not assume an inheritance (due to the government’s means-testing rules), but if I can buy him out he will be happy.

Normally one should pay off debts as fast as possible. But, as the interest on my mortgage is now so low (but not the lowest), and a need I may have for a large cash injection to buy out everyone else, I should save as hard as I can. I now regret a £5000 mortgage repayment last November, but I can now, calling on all resources, raise £37k from savings now, which is a start towards the estimated £160k price on mother’s house – without selling my flat, which I need for work.. House is in a bad way. But to save the house from being sold to cover home costs is now my principle aim. Even if it’s a lower-middle-class semi-detached…it’s my last chance for a garden…and it is where the greenhouse, orchard and father’s shed are…

But, as Jeremy Hardy says, I plan to be a burden on the state in my old age, having seen how money was vacuumed from my late father’s estate, and how much I have to fight the same from my mother’s.

Paper Passions. RIP

The Richmond shopfront in better times. Picture from their website

I reported on January 19th almost in passing that the shop “Paper Passions” had closed down. At some point soon this internet link will fail, but until then…It’s coming up to the first time I will miss this shop. It was a source of hand made cards, which I had used for everything from my brother’s wedding, anniversaries, birthdays, usually from local small companies.

That was not the only sort of thing I purchased from it. Christmas tree decorations, every year a different collection; the occasional notepad, plain paper book or similar; this xmas, a set of 20 paste-in book plates, stating “This book was stolen from…” which I gave to my brother (a fun present)(*).

Last Saturday it was clear the stock was being removed from the shop, and a note on the door was clearly aimed at some supplier coming to collect some stock as “retention of title”. (**)

(*). Not wishing to boast, but while I was at [a redbrick] University, I won a University Scholarship, and a friend of mine a Prize. The prize was worth – oh, £20? – but was to buy a book; and a book plate showing that the book was the prize of the Prize was provided. My scholarship was £100 (even in those days, not that much), but I had absolutely nothing to show I had won it. I’m not sure there was even a letter with the cheque. Apparently it did get published, in the relivent year’s Congragation publication, which I did not receive as I was not graduating that year!

(**)”Retention of Title”. Matters got so bad with one customer that I pulled this on them; however, they paid up (they were starved of cash for a long time), and indeed we’ve just received another significant order from them.

However, the same trick was one of the foundations of my (meaning our, but I’m the senior member) company. My colleague and I worked for a company that was clearly going down, just as a batch of assembled electronic units was delivered. Clearly the sub-contractor was not going to be paid, so, once it was clear the company was going to be liquidated, we contacted the sub-contractor and asked them to pull the “Retention of title” trick; for we were prepared to buy them for the going price. They did; it was quite funny being around while that farce was played out, for the company could not understand why these items were being pulled back – “what use do you have for them?” – was the wail.

We were also at the other end of the Retention of title trick about the same time. We had made an offer for various parts to the liquidator, which was accepted, and we carted off the stuff. Then another supplier came around, to claim back parts unpaid for. I learnt that one of the items unpaid for was one of the items we had purchased from the liquidator. What suprised me was that they could not take an identical item, because, from it’s serial number, it was identified as being paid for, whereas the unit we had, from it’s serial number, could be identified as not. But possession is nine tenths of the law…and that part eventually became part of another arguement, from which we no longer use it…