HOUSE PURCHASE DEPARTMENT
The Rules of the Birmingham Municipal Bank, consequent upon the Bank being set up under the Birmingham Corporation Act of 1919, listed
three objectives for the Bank:
(a) To receive deposits and to guarantee the payment of interest on and the
repayment of such deposits.
(b) To advance money to any depositors desiring to purchase or acquire a dwelling house or dwelling houses
in the City of Birmingham, or any interest therein.
(c) To utilise and invest the funds of the Bank in accordance with the Act and the regulations made thereunder,
or such other regulations as may be made as therein provided.
These Rules, in relation to objectives (a)
and (b), referred to the 'Savings Bank Department' and the 'Housing Department' respectively. The 1919 Rules were subsequent to the
Bank's 'Savings and Housing Bank Regulations' (approved by the Treasury: August 25th 1919). These regulations were subsequently surplanted
by The Birmingham Municipal Bank Regulations of 1925 which formulated the rules regarding each of these two departments in two separate
sections, which were now called:
the Depositors' Department; and
the House
Purchase Department.
The history of the HOUSE PURCHASE DEPARTMENT, its methods of operation, and other related subjects
are covered in the following sections of this website:
The background to the Birmingham Municipal Bank being given the authority to make loans for house purchase,
plus some aspects of the Department's early history as reported in the Bank's Annual Reports
An article by Michael Bourke on "How it all Worked"
Extractions from the Minutes of the Bank Committee and its Sub-Committees that show how the Bank's policy and methods
of administration in relation to its House Purchase facility were developed in the period September 1919 to October 1939.
Also included are extracts from the Minutes showing examples of how various mortgage applications, accounts, etc were dealt with.
Mortgage advances and repayments analysed by Amount and Number
Historical record of interest rates charged to mortgagors
Description of the method used to calculate mortgage interest charges, prior to the computerisation of the calculations
Details of the advances made in the period September 1st 1919 to March 31st 1920
Description
of the development of the House Purchase Department in the years 1919 to 1924
The schemes operated at Bolton, Burnley, and Ilford - investigated by the Bank in 1919
Development of the House Purchase Department from 1919 to 1927
Report by the General Manager to the House Purchase Sub-Committee
Details of the BMB's takeover of Solihull Council's house purchase loans
The history of a scheme to advance a loan to a builder in order to facilitate the construction of the Pheasey housing estate
Copy of a booklet issued by the Bank in June 1950 regarding House Purchase
The recollections of Eric Bignell
Article by Norman Worwoood describing how the Bank dealt with mortgage
applications in the 1950s and 1960s
A short article written
by Bert Hopkins for a publication celebrating the Bank's Golden Jubilee in 1969
A comprehensive article written by Bert Hopkins in 1972, for the Journal of the Savings Banks Institute
Reports by the Bank's Management Committee regarding the House Purchase Department: 1922
to 1954
The History of Advances made to the Bournville Village Trust
Three types of loan that were an alternative to the usual straight-forward applications
by owner-occupiers
Details of the Bank's involvement in Birmingham
Corporation's scheme to sell municipal houses
between the First and Second World Wars
Reproduction of part of a leaflet, issued by a builder, that included
praise for the Birmingham Municipal Bank
How the Trustee Savings Banks
Act 1978 regularised the position of mortgage loans made by the Birmingham Municipal TSB
Examples of passbooks used to record transactions made on mortgage accounts
Examples relating to an 'Equated' mortgage and a 'Reducing' mortgage
Names of the valuers appointed by the Bank's Management Committee/Board of Trustees to provide valuations on properties
that
the Bank was considering as security for a proposed house purchase advance
Details of loans made by the Bank under the Land Settlement (Facilities) Act, 1919
An unsuccessful scheme promoted by the City's Estates Department
