Hassan Draper

Just talking about the 80's brought back memories of how much mortgage
lending has changed in comparison to today. Does anybody remember
‘MIRAS’? I shall make it easy for you, it stood for Mortgage Interest
Relief At Source.

Imagine applying for a home loan mortgage today, and getting tax relief on
the interest of the payment. It made interest only mortgages very appealing
to a higher rate tax payer, this leaned even more to your advantage. The tax
relief was aimed at the first 30k of mortgage which was applied for in a
single name and even up to four different names. So a total loan of 120k
could, in theory, have tax relief. This made it the cheapest amount of money
a person could borrow at the time. I think like most good ideas, the
original intention was to be able to give first time buyers a helping hand
at the start of the property ladder.

However, just like many good ideas, someone thought to toy with the original
idea and helped many people with school fees or even a directors loan into a
company from his own home, as the scheme was also allowed on re-mortgages.
When the incentive was withdrawn in the late 80's, it created a buying
frenzy. This is because everybody wanted to jump onto the property band
wagon and for the outcome house prices spiralled even higher until the
property market collapsed in the late 80's/early 90's.
We were at a point where, for the first time, millions of people had the
opportunity to purchase their first house and when millions were truly
bitten by the property bug.

By Hassan Draper

Hassan Draper started in financial services back in the mid 1980 as a
manager specialising in mortgages and commercial loans.

Hassan Draper

Having started in financial services in 84/85 with NML, which is a
with-profits insurance company. The company, put simply, was owned by its
clients/policy holders and as a result all of its profits would be spread
out internally. The regular investment contracts paid out an amount each
year as a return with a final bonus paid out upon the investment maturity
date. Most of these types of insurance companies have been around for
decades.

As the eighties exploded, more and more companies thought the way forward
was a direct sales force selling that specific companies financial products,
with the biggest players at that time having 1000's of sales people. It
really was an exciting time. At that time cold-calling was allowed, so we
were able to call businesses directly to talk about the products we offered.
In most cases back then, there were very few individuals who had life
insurance opposed to people with in company pension schemes, which also
offered death-in-service within this scheme. Anyone self employed or in a
partnership fell out of this group and therefore had to make their own
personal arrangements.

The eighties was an on-going good time for the financial process, council
housing tenants had been given the right to purchase their own property,
there was shared ownership available to all people with privatisation. This
was available as state owned businesses were sold off by the government.
Looking back at that time, most people would have an opinion on whether it
all a good or bad thing. Or maybe was it right for a person to purchase
their council house? Along with many other shared or individual opinions. I
am not writing about the positives and negatives of the times, only about
being present at what has, ultimately, shaped most peoples financial future.

By Hassan Draper

Hassan Draper started in financial services back in the mid 1980 as a
manager specialising in mortgages and commercial loans.