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Your Lender is Not Your Friend Your Lender is Not Your Friend

From: Glenn_Dickson
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Once you have missed a payment the lender is not your friend. Missed payments equal more money for the lender. The more the lender gets, the happier he is. The best way for the lender to get more money out of you is to increase your monthly payment through accrued interest from late payments or missed payments, late fees and penalties. It is a real money maker for the lender. This has always been a fact and all homeowners know it and accept it.
Where the problem currently lies is that the homeowner has been led to believe by both government campaigns and lender lies that the lender is actually going to help him – the homeowner, who has fallen behind. The lender is not going to help you – unless there’s money to be made in it for him. Enough money to make it worth his while – and that means he will actually pretend to help you. In fact, the lender will just string you along with false promises and pretenses for months and months and months, finally you’ll end up in foreclosure and possibly lose your home to public auction.
You, the homeowner have always been nothing more than a loan number to the lending institutions. Sadly, that’s all you’ll ever be. They’re not particularly moved by the fact that your child has special needs, or your mother needs extra care. They don’t really care that your spouse lost their job, or that the home has been in your family for six generations. In fact they have no interest in any of the aspects of your life. The equation is simple: Your money or your home.
What matters is that your loan number has fallen behind and now you are on the very-profitable-for-the-lender road to foreclosure. Soon they will either get a large, normally uncontested “chunk of change” from you-who-represents-your-loan-number, or they’ll get your house – which secures your loan number.
Sure, they have seemingly courteous people on the phone (well some of them do, others use call centers in India or hire brutes to scare, manipulate and threaten you), all who say “stop making your payment and we’ll get you a loan mod,” or “we can’t help you until you are three payments behind,” or we have you in the system for a loan mod, now it will take only 4 months to get you a mod (of course it actually turns out to be 13 to 18 months because they are always losing your paperwork).
Why does a process as simple as a loan mod take so long? Because every missed payment is more money for the lender. Did you know that almost half the homeowners manage somehow to cure their default amount to prevent foreclosure from starting? Sure, but they wiped out every financial resource the homeowner had, and once again, he can’t make his monthly payment!
The homeowner is back in default and on the road to foreclosure in no time at all. Meanwhile the lender made a nice sum and gets to go for round two. The only route left to save the home is bankruptcy – most homeowners think—so they destroy the rest of their credit and dignity in a last ditch effort to save their home. It bought them a bit of time, but it seems the lender still gets the home in the end.
What started all this? Rather, who started all this? It was the lenders themselves. That’s correct, they gave you loans designed to fail. They’ve made billions of dollars at your expense. That’s why it is predatory lending and predatory servicing. Since the day you got your loan you have been preyed upon. You have been told that this is “all your fault,” and the government has “tried to comfort you” with promises of help through President Obama’s HAMP program. That, of course we all know now, is just a great big joke. Most people only give money to the lender for months on end, while none of it goes to their loan, then they get disapproved and foreclosed upon.
And it seems to so many homeowners that everybody is in on their pain for the lender’s gain. Attorney’s won’t take on the homeowner and fight for him when the lender will pay him well to foreclose. Judges don’t really want their courtrooms clogged up with foreclosure cases, so warehouse them through. Lenders ‘warn” homeowners not to get professional help, ‘cuz, well you know, “the lender will help you for free”, yah, sure we all know that lie by now. And saddest of all: politicians are passing laws that prevent homeowners from hiring professionals to help them get their loans modified!
But there is hope, and there is help. Rockingham Associates is there for the homeowner. They conduct forensic loan reviews which reveal all the violations in the loan the lender gave you. They conduct predatory servicing investigations, which reveal all the predatory acts the servicer has committed against you. They use those investigations as the springboard to getting you successful negotiations. Lenders suddenly would rather modify your loan, than deal with investigations.
Homeowners don’t have to stand alone, they don’t have to be abused and preyed upon. They just need a professional on their side and that would be the good people at Rockingham Associates. Visit their website at www.rockinghamassoc.com to learn more about this company and what they can do for you. They are busy rekindling the American Dream. Their goal is to get you complete financial recovery. Consider contacting one of their representatives to begin to unravel your financial dilemmas.
Tags: lender, late payments, default, homeowners, Foreclosure, Loan Mod, Loan Modification, Predatory Loans, Predatory Lenders, Credit Scores, Foreclosure, predatory foreclosure, bankruptcy, Rockingham Associates, Rockingham, borrowers, HAMP, HAMP Program, Obama Plan, Bankruptcies, Predatory Servicing
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2 weeks ago
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Castertroy

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Islay Junior Gaelic Choir - Ap Islay Junior Gaelic Choir - Appeal Dinner & Auction

From: WhiskyCorrespondent
Description:

28/6/10
Islay Junior Gaelic Choir - Appeal Dinner & Auction
Islay hotelier and choir supporter Grahame Allison, of the island’s Port Charlotte Hotel, is holding a dinner on Saturday 21 August to raise funds for the Islay Junior Gaelic Choir to take part in this year’s Mod in October. The Mod is Scotland’s annual festival of Gaelic culture with international groups and individuals competing for medals in musical and literary categories. This year’s event is being held in Caithness in the far north of Scotland.

At the dinner there will also be an auction of older and rarer bottles of whisky from the island’s distilleries. This will be run by Andy Bell, whisky specialist at McTear’s Auctioneers and Scotland’s leading whisky auction house.

Price of the 4 course dinner is £95 per person, excluding wine but it does include a tasting of some rare whiskies afterwards. These include the Laphroaig Cairdeas, bottled especially for the 2008 whisky festival and a rare Port Ellen with a Bruichladdich and Bunnahabhain both over 30 years old to be confirmed. A great way to spend part of a weekend or longer stay on Islay and help the island’s young people in the Choir achieve their ambition to compete. It promises to be an exciting menu created by head chef Ranga. The hotel still has some rooms left for that period but there is other good accommodation nearby. You can either contact the hotel on ++ 44 (0) 1496 850360 or on info@portcharlottehotel.co.uk . Alternatively, for help with transport and accommodation contact Caroline Dewar of Whisky with Confidence on info@whisky-tours.com . The restaurant holds only 40 people so don’t delay.

For those who cannot come to Islay but would like to make a donation to help the Choir, please contact the hotel on isabelle@portcharlottehotel.co.uk for information on how to donate funds before 21 August. Every little helps and is much appreciated.

© Caroline Dewar 2010
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Islay 2010 - Let's Celebrate! Islay 2010 - Let's Celebrate!

From: WhiskyCorrespondent
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11^th June 2010

Well, it was that time of year again in the last week of May. The Islay Festival of Malt & Music (Feis Ile) was staged once more - 25 years for the music part of the Feis and number eleven (I think) for the whisky part. The distilleries started joining in from 2000 and me with them, though it is a while back and I can’t quite recall.

As in most previous years I went over to do my Feis Whisky Dinner held, as always, in the excellent Port Charlotte Hotel. This year head chef, Ranga, did not include any Asian spicing but it was still an enormously interesting menu to try and match with whiskies. I was really pleased that all my chosen pairings worked so well again this year and everyone seemed to enjoy the whisky and the food. Yet again I spent some happy minutes at my own kitchen table looking at some of Ranga’s flavourings in the menu alongside my whisky samples before making decisions.

This year I took as my theme, “Celebrate!” What were we celebrating? Islay itself, its people and their hospitality, the glorious whiskies, those able to attend the festival and the dinner, the lack of volcanic ash in the skies so everyone could get there - and Jura’s bicentenary. There will be more celebration for that later this year. Only another five years and it will be Laphroaig’s turn and then Lagavulin.

Anyway, I had asked the distilleries for bottles of their special bottlings for this year’s Feis or their most recent expression. These proved so popular this year that there was a queue outside Bowmore’s visitor centre from 3a.m. and some grabbed a bit of sleep in their cars before queuing. When I dropped by Kilchoman on the Thursday morning there was a queue as if for an execution stretching all the way through the shop and café. In most cases I had the Feis bottlings. In one or two cases I didn’t as the Feis bottlings were older and rather expensive so other recent expressions were substituted.

All of them tasted terrific and I was quite taken with the Bunnahabhain PX and the Jura from a small batch bourbon cask. Delicious. The Lagavulin this year was given to me to sample first at the distillery alongside another limited bottling. Both were delightful and I was so impressed with the second one that I bought a bottle of that to enjoy at home. The Laphroaig had a wonderful depth and dryness which matched so well the dressing on the salad and semi-dried tomato with the woodcock. It cut through the oiliness of the dressing and the richness of that tomato and the bird itself. As ever, Bowmore went well with the fish. I was wondering if I could try it with something else this year but it was going to be an obvious fish pairing due to its citrus, light sea salt and smoke flavours that I didn’t try to force it into another match. The Bruichladdich Classic at the start was used so people could appreciate its crisp, clean flavour without too much food – just the lovely canapé nibbles. The Ardbeg Rollercoaster was a fine one at the end because it was launched to celebrate ten years of the Ardbeg Committee.

The menu is shown below. This JPEG is going to be small so use your zoom button to enlarge and read it. The food was as fine and generously portioned as ever. As I mentioned that evening, I am trying to get thinner for a dress to wear to my godson’s wedding in August and wonderful food like that doesn’t help the cause. Worth it though.

Once again there was a mini United Nations in the restaurant for that night with guests from USA, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, UK and more. My thanks go to all the distilleries and head offices who supplied the whisky for that event. Their support is much valued and appreciated.

© Caroline Dewar 2010
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From: WhiskyCorrespondent
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Royal Treatment for The Glenli Royal Treatment for The Glenlivet & A New Master Distiller

From: WhiskyCorrespondent
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7^th June 2010

On Friday 4^th June The Glenlivet Distillery played host to HRH Prince Charles (or Duke of Rothesay as he is up here) when he came to open the distillery extension which cost £10 million and houses a new mash tun, eight traditional oregon pine washbacks and six expertly crafted copper stills. It will mean a potential 75% increase in production capacity. This is to support the aim of Chivas, Pernod Ricard’s whisky and gin arm, in making The Glenlivet the world’s No. 1 single malt Scotch Whisky. That position is currently held by Glenfiddich but being seriously challenged.

The Glenlivet was the first malt to be promoted in the US as soon as Prohibition was lifted. Today, it is the USA’s No. 1 single malt and the world’s No. 2 and one of only two single malts ever to sell more than 600,000 standard cases.
During the visit, Patrick Ricard (pictured right, above), Chairman of the Board of Pernod Ricard, and Christian Porta (left, above), CEO of Chivas Brothers, invited His Royal Highness to tour the distillery’s facilities, meet key members of staff and unveil a commemorative sculpture. Royal visits are always exciting but fraught for the organisers. Chivas have managed this one with considerable aplomb. (I remember the run-up to a visit by Prince Charles at Laphroaig in the 1990’s. I wasn’t involved in that one but my PR colleague and our CEO were quite nervous about it beforehand. Of course, it went really well and Prince Charles was a charming visitor.)
Christian Porta, reiterated the importance of this investment to the future success of The Glenlivet: “Today’s opening represents the latest milestone in a period of sustained investment and strong growth in The Glenlivet. Since 2002, we have taken the brand from No 3 to No 2 globally with investment in packaging, marketing and new product development.
“The stunning new extension not only gives us the production potential to meet the buoyant demands of global markets and, one day take the No 1 spot, it is also a sympathetic and aesthetically enduring legacy for generations to come to admire.”
The investment has already brought real benefits to the local business community with a team of local contractors involved in the expansion. Overall design was by architects LDN of Forres whilst the principle contractor was A.D. Walker of Banff. Subcontractors included Simmers of Keith who built the steel structure, specialist vat builders Joseph Brown of Dufftown who installed 8 new traditional wooden washbacks, and coppersmiths Forsyths of Rothes who built 6 new stills exactly replicating the distillery’s famous tall, wide still shape. All a great boost to the local economy not to mention Scotland in general.
The new building was designed to sit sympathetically alongside other Grade II listed distillery buildings whilst also delivering a first class, modern production facility that incorporates the latest heat recovery technology to aid efficiency. The open plan design will also enhance the distillery’s visitor experience which already holds 5 stars from the Scottish Tourist Board. The distillery’s 45,000 annual visitors will be able to see most of the production process in one building and also connect with the surrounding landscape via the expansive use of glass in the building. They have always offered a good tour with a talented team at The Glenlivet and this will make it even better.
The construction of the new building was also the first major duty of newly appointed Master Distiller, Alan Winchester (pictured), a lifelong resident of Speyside who has been a leading light in the industry for many years. Alan commented: “The opening was a momentous occasion in the long and proud history of The Glenlivet Distillery. It was a privilege to be involved with the new building and we are honoured to have such distinguished company to mark the occasion.”
To celebrate the opening, a specially created bottling, The Glenlivet Founder’s Reserve, will be released in a limited quantity of 1824 bottles to reflect the year of the distillery’s first taking out a licence to distil legally. Selected from some of The Glenlivet’s most precious casks, this 21 year old, non-chill filtered Scotch whisky will be available from the The Glenlivet Visitor Centre while stocks last.
© Caroline Dewar 2010
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Request for help finding a fav Request for help finding a favorite Scotch

From: Cloes Dad
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Can anyone refer me to a US supplier of any of the products produced by:

La Martinquaise
http://www.la-martiniquaise.fr/_uk/index.html
I am particularly interested in their "Label 5" and "McHarrison" brands
3 months ago
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Westward Ho! To Islay - Quinte Westward Ho! To Islay - Quintessentially

From: WhiskyCorrespondent
Description:

10^th April 2010
It is almost time for the Feis Ile or Islay Festival of Malt and Music again. Held at the end of May each year, this is a celebration of the island’s fine single malt whiskies and of its other creative talents including music, ale and food.
The music side had been running for a number of years and then the whisky distilleries joined in some ten or eleven years ago. I have been involved with it since then but it’s so long ago I can’t remember the exact year. All I do know is that it has been a pleasure and a lot of fun. Those of you who have been reading this column for a while will know that I run a whisky dinner on the island each year during the festival and this year will be no exception. It involves pairing the whiskies of Islay and Jura with each course on the menu. There are currently eight distilleries on Islay with another famous one a five minute ferry trip away on Jura. In the years I have been doing the dinner (only about eight) it has always been held in the excellent Port Charlotte Hotel – one of the nicest accommodations on the island.

Those who haven’t booked for this year’s festival are now far too late as the good accommodation tends to get full before Christmas for the following year’s fest. This year was a little different – though still full - and I think the recession and volcanic ash have something to do with that. Similarly, some events are full before Christmas too. Most distilleries do not announce their festival events until February or March but they fill up incredibly fast. You need to be poised over the computer to receive e-mails about the various distillery treats in store and get on and reserve right away. But there are other times and ways of visiting this glorious little island.

You can go almost any time of year but distilleries tend not to open at weekends in winter or have more limited hours. Everybody needs their day off. Despite putting my tour work at a reduced level, I still arrange trips to Islay for clients at other times of year and concentrate more on the upmarket traveller or corporate groups. One new arrangement I have is with the London company, the Quintessentially group. They have one arm, Quintessentially Escape, which caters for the wealthy traveller looking for a much more exclusive offer. I have joined forces with them to create a trip where they take care of transport over to the island, with access to a large private house with chef and staff to look after you, while I set up the VIP distillery visits plus other events like a tasting or whisky dinner and accompany the group as resident whisky expert. It works best for groups of six to eight people and is available on selected dates in the year for one week starting on a Monday. Coming from overseas, you would need to be in the UK (London or Glasgow) on the Sunday ready to fly to Islay on the Monday morning. For more information do look up their website at www.quintessentiallyescape.com and prices are available from them on enquiry, dependent on number in your group. The trip includes private flight to/from Islay and can also cover golf or fishing and a power boat ride. You can also e-mail me on info@whisky-tours.com and I can pass on enquiries.

But what if you have a different requirement of Islay that costs less? Easy. You can get there by plane from Glasgow Airport (NOT Prestwick) in half an hour with flights every day of the week. If you have more time and like to see more scenery then there is a ferry from our west coast, near Tarbert. The port is Kennacraig and is about a two and a half hour drive from Glasgow but allow a little more time if you want to stop off and photograph scenery or in case you get stuck behind something moving more slowly. No multi-lane highways up there. If you miss your sailing you would have a long wait for the next one. The sea crossing itself takes two hours on a Caledonian MacBrayne ferry which takes foot passengers and cars or bikes. Many of the island’s supplies go that way by truck too and the whisky comes over by boat in tankers from the island. Allow a couple of extra days if you go the ferry route but the drive is worth it if the weather is good –and it is still quite dramatic when it is raining. The boat trip is relaxing and refreshing. Islay’s little airport has two or three flights a day dependent on day of the week. You used to be able to stroll in about 20 minutes before your flight left but with the current need for stringent security you need to be there a lot earlier and they do take the security checks very seriously.

Islay is not short of accommodation for those making a whisky pilgrimage. Some of the best hotels are Port Charlotte Hotel in the village of the same name, The Harbour Inn in Bowmore town and a relative newcomer An Taigh Osda, almost next door to Bruichladdich Distillery. It opened only a few years ago as a boutique hotel with a few rooms. They take reservations for dinner from non-residents and its food is a ragingly successful addition to Islay’s fine fare. I have had happy clients in all three of these places and there are other good hotels too as well as plenty more food options. The Machrie Hotel out near the airport has the island’s only golf course, first set out in 1891 and a challenging 18 holes beside the sea. As well as rooms the hotel also has cottages for rent.

Beyond these are some excellent guest houses such as Kilmeny, Glenegedale (pictured) and Glenmachrie. They have 5 star status and deservedly so as do Loch Gorm House and The Monachs. Loch Gruinart House does a fine B&B as well as offering a studio apartment to let. The hospitality and food are wonderful at all of them. In addition there is Bruichladdich Distillery’s Academy House. The Academy courses were halted - too much distilling to do! – but the house is still there as a beautifully located B&B. Pour a dram on a fine evening and walk over to the rocky shore opposite the distillery…..

For those wanting B&B elsewhere on the island there are plenty of really good places to choose from and too numerous to list so apologies to those not mentioned by name. I have used some but by no means all and new or improved ones continue to appear. The Tourist office in Bowmore on Islay can help here too. One where I have had happy clients over the years is Caladh Sona in Port Ellen. Hugely hospitable owners, great reakfasts, rooms with their own bathroom or shower room and right beside one of Islay’s two ferry ports. Dependent on your arrival or departure time by ferry you may find yourself at this port at least once. Islay also has a raft of good properties for self-catering from simple studios to large houses. These tend to be let for a full week from Saturday – Saturday though Bowmore Distillery’s lovely cottages (Garden Cottage pictured here) can be rented for shorter periods.

Are distillery tours all there is? No. Apart from the golf already mentioned, there is fishing at the right time of year; boat trips; a visit over to Jura to walk and to see deer and Corryvreckan whirlpool; pony trekking; diving; ancient historical sights and more. Nice beaches on a calm, sunny day too, for walks or make sandcastles or just to dream.
© Caroline Dewar 2010
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