Banks: what do they know?

The best definition of a bank is the following:
"An institution that gives you an umbrella when the sun is out but wants it back when it rains".

For years banks were giving mortgages to any sort of people knocking to their doors. The economy was booming (or so they thought) and home-buyers were able to borrow up to 7 times their salary. Banks were being unreasonably optimistic and/or cynic and many borrowers were deluding themselves. How could people borrow more than 100% of the cost of the property? This is beyond the point of what I call human intelligence.

Now, due to the credit crunch, banks have made a 360 degrees turnaround of their policies. They don't give mortgages to people who can afford one and they come up with the most stupid rules they can think of.

Me and my girlfriend are currently trying to finance an ex-council property in the Elephant and Castle area with Nationwide. Banks don't like ex-council flats, and they try to put you off as much as they can from this type of property but for people like me the choice is not between a private property and ex-council. My choice is between ex-council, pay rent forever or waiting for the Second Coming of the Communist Party.

Nationwide at first decided to give us a mortgage. However, a couple of weeks later we got a letter, saying they cannot offer us the mortgage any more because the property where the flat is located is more than four storeys high. Apparently Nationwide is strict on this rule: more than four floors in an ex-council property and you don't get a mortgage.

The peculiar thing about this building is that there are only four floors but then, bizarrely, in one wing there are five. God knows why the council in 1966 decided to raise a council building with a sprung out floor, maybe because the planners were all celebrating the only World Cup England has ever managed to win I suppose... However, for the sake of one bloody floor, the bank will not give me the rate it had originally promised.

This means that I have lost precious time and I need to look for another bank. This also means I will definitely be getting a worse rate. But, as Nationwide probably will prefer, I can always go insane and buy a flat in a private property and then ask the bank for a mortgage 5-6 times my salary.

I will probably be better off by blowing up the entire fifth floor of the property... come that to mind.