Angel’s Share

The Angels’ Share

Guide To How This Facility Helps UPS-HQ Help You

Unique Property Bulletin

Syndicates started in 1997 and the core member team (UPS-HQ) have effectively volunteered and donated quite a lot of time, happily and for free. After 20 years, a salary was kindly offered (& declined). The team felt some of the spirit would be lost if paid. The I.T., volunteer at UPS-HQ uttered some received wisdom: “I do this for the love of it; unique property projects are something that I enjoy”.

However, over time, unique property ventures have become much more complex. A risk of volunteer burnout has emerged. To remedy this, the Angels’ Share was established. Summarised here:-

The Angels’ Share is a fund being built up by setting aside what the Unique Property Syndicate volunteers and directors (at UPS-HQ) would have been paid had they taken a salary. Instead, the UPS-HQ team do NOT accept any remuneration. All monies due to them go towards the Angels’ Share trust and purpose.

The core members’ of UPS-HQ, are seeking to establish a legacy that will preserve and protect the existence and ethos of Unique Property Syndicates and the Unique Property Bulletin for the long term.

This is being achieved by the Angels’ Share initiative. Eventually, at least three buildings shall be owned by Angels’ Share trust. The income generated from the resultant property rentals will be utilised, primarily to guarantee new PAYE employee wages. Thereby reducing the risk of volunteer burnout. Whilst also securing the futures of Unique Property Syndicates and Unique Property Bulletin. All UPS members (you) are to be gifted a £10 share certificate in the relevant UPS-HQ/Angels’ Share entities. This also has the useful consequence in satisfying the Sophisticated Investor protocol. IMPORTANT: If you don’t have your £10 share certificates, please contact UPS-HQ at the current office location/email/telephone/text.

The Angels’ Share protocol is also intended to help unique property syndicates (UPS) help club members in several key areas. These objectives are agreed via this document and where funds permit:-

1] Angels’ Share shall pay for survey + architect + professional + legal fees of “candidate” projects so UPS members do NOT need to underwrite these costs if a project fails to start. For example Angels’ Share settled the £8,796 professional fees rendered for the Corsewall Lighthouse candidate project. UPS members did not have to pay any of that uncomfortable cost of the candidate property due diligence process.

2] Wherever possible, provide an early exit-route with “bridging-finance” at ZERO % to all participating members when the Angels’ Share fund reserves and balance permits.

3] Covering contingencies so that UPS members are not hit by a financial shock. For example: Angels’ Share paid the UPS24 Santander Bank plc interest rate differential black hole of £20,475 (inbound 0.35% interest from Santander less outbound 30% on working capital). This is paid at UPS-HQ discretion.

4] Establishing/growing the core fund for purchase of the Angels’ Share trust annuity buildings. The rental from these will pay for employed staff and other elements as described herein at the discretion of UPS-HQ.

The Angels’ Share nominal volunteer amount varies from syndicate to syndicate. The 2019 hourly rate forgone by volunteers has been £10.75. For some of our UPS-HQ team this equates to a fraction of their PAYE remuneration in each members’ day job. The actual rate for project management and skillset brought be UPS-HQ volunteers is nearer to £36.88 per/hour. Ref: www.tinyurl.com/UPS-1-Hour.

Any questions, please contact UPS-HQ: Click Here

The Devil’s Cut

UPS-HQ prohibit bank borrowing in all UPS projects. Yet the banks still find a way to extract money.

We have plugged this bank-grab gap. It cost the Angels’ Share £20,475.

Fortunately, UPS-HQ were able to protect UPS members from this hit.

You might ask: “Just change the syndicate bank”.

UPS-HQ experience from the charity we registered in 1997 is that all banks are similarly bad.

Russ McLean lost a friend in the 1990s due to debt-related suicide and has had a jaundiced view of banks ever since. Even establishing a charity in 1997 (here). 9 years and 3,628 folk helped. Ironically the charity was closed in November 2006 due to promises that boom and bust had ended (deregistration took 12 months). Who knew what would happen next – the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression in 1929!

This Book Was Published To Help When The Charity Became Swamped With People Needing Advice.

Lest any member of UPS be in doubt why Russ McLean bans banks and mortgages from being involved with UPS projects, the loss of a friend is a main reason why.

So it came as a shock to UPS-HQ when we were sorting out the book-keeping + accounts for Noss Head Lighthouse syndicate number 24 and there appeared to be an unwelcome black hole of £20,475.52. Where was this money? As a former detective and armed with very rusty “O” level and “Higher” accounts from 1976-78, Russ McLean forensically examined the paperwork. 

The eureka, or rather the horror moment happened at around 3am after trawling through reams of papers + invoices + receipts + bank statements.

The bank had effectively nabbed the money. Legally! The aroma rodent from Santander was evident. The CEO at Santander has his fingerprints all over the RBS department where that miscreant used to work. The foreclosure-happy and asset-grab entity at RBS had that banks throwing viable businesses out of the financial crash lifeboats to save their own rotten skins (here and here). This all echoed the horrible experiences from when the money advice charity was dealing with the awful number of harrowing cases where banks kill off businesses, destroy jobs and harm people’s health. Even Martin Lewis has written a book on how bad banks can be to your health: here.

In short, Santander Bank plc paid UPS24 (Lighthouse Keepers Homes Ltd) between 0.1% and 0.35% interest on the working capital balance held on deposit at Santander Bank. UPS24 averaged £68,480 on deposit throughout the renovation of the three Grade A listed lighthouse properties and other buildings onsite.

UPS-HQ were not comfortable instructing the bank to put syndicate money in Santander Banks more “exotic” accounts with better interest (1.5% to 2.2%) as we have a fiduciary duty of care. We refuse to risk members and our funds in any way and certainly not deviate from our MAPU agreements etc. Besides the funds were needed in a fairly liquid and accessible form due to the contractor invoices and building material bills that regularly came in.

There emerged an interest rate differential on the working capital deposited. (bad bank conduct: here),

In essence, the UPS24 working capital averaging £68,480 on deposit required to have the contemporaneous members paid equitably at 30% as declared on the final calulations for UPS24 completion.

There you have it. The bank borrows our money at 0.35% and lends it out at 18%+. There have been cases where their APR can go past 30% (here).

Fortunately…

The Angels’ Share was able to take this hit and UPS-HQ authorised Angels’ Share trust to pay the £20,475. No UPS members were exposed to this problem.

UPS-HQ are taking steps to reduce this inequitable situation where the banks grasp money through exploiting poorer customers through the usurious abuse of interest rate differentials.

In answer to the question at the head of this page?

Yes, the Angels’ Share Can Save You £20,475

Pro rata of course, but just to make this real – here is what it would have cost participating members of the Noss Head Lighthouse syndicate…

UPS24 members at £25,000 would have lost a whopping £1,842.79 of their net profit.

Even the most popular tranche of £10,000 membership at Noss Head Lighthouse Station would have lost £737.18.

The Angels’ Share is also becoming an excellent insurance policy to ward off bad banks + cover those syndicate legal and professional fees for projects that don’t get off of the ground. We include some of the invoices paid by the Angels’ Share (evidenced below) so that UPS members don’t have to.

You might wonder why the Devil’s Cut is mentioned here. It is a nod towards one of our earlier syndicates: an old cooperage where whisky barrels were made. The place smelt lovely.

The Angels’ Share is part of the folklore around that earlier syndicate. For those wishing to know more, here is the balance to the old tale…

The Devil’s Cut: Click Here

Angels + Whisky + Proof

The Angels’ Share mantra comes from evaporation off of whisky barrels.

Here is some “evaporation” that ended up profiting Santander Bank plc

UPS24 Maintained A Healthy Working Capital On Deposit At Santander

To Ensure Sufficient Working Capital For The Lighthouse Renovations.

In simple terms, Santander Bank plc paid UPS24 0.35% and lent this working capital out at 12% to 18.9% APR.

It may seem an obscure point, but there is a sophisticated financial dynamic here that has caused UPS24 significant discomfort. Basically, even though UPS-HQ BAN mortgages and no syndicate borrows off of banks, Santander still manage to rip us off.

The UPS-HQ team members are not fans of bankers. We are taking immediate measures to ensure this nasty financial sting in the tail does not happen again.

The Angels’ Share Works

We were not totally sure at first. But the wisdom of the Angels’ Share initiative is clear.

Just look at the invoices paid by the Angels’ Share listed below.

This takes a big shock away from members.

But what about the numbers? The money?

Well, we can provide the numbers around what UPS-HQ volunteer members forgo. UPS-HQ project management team do not charge. Were UPS to remunerate, the hourly rate has been set at a nominal £10.75 per hour. All of these the funds on each UPS project are instead donated to the Angels’ Share fund.

For comparison with mainstream construction and building projects, as an example, here is the actual hourly rate that two of our volunteers attain at their day job away from UPS is in this region…

The funds forgone by the Angels’ Share are modest in comparison to project management we have onside. That is not all, the UPS projects have a remarkable resource in several members being professional architects, quantity surveyors, solicitors, accountants and pension fund managers. More directly we have joiners, electricians, construction executives, property company directors a brilliant array of wise counsel at hand to give their advice. Free. To repeat Steve Banks, our IT guru, all these members help Unique Property Bulletin and Syndicates for the love of it.

A remarkable group of people.

This is one of the reasons Russ McLea includes “hotels” in what we do. He is keen that some day, those who would like to meet up can do so in one of the hotels they own. Hence…

www.hotelroomownership.net

Guess what? It is all coming together. The Sannox Hotel, the growth in UPS members’ profits, the prospect of our Lakeside project at Lancaster (here). That location is not guaranteed, but if Clevelymere is sold before we are ready to move to central England, there WILL be other tasty candidate projects to get our paws into.

Angels’ Share In Action

This section has real invoices. All required to be paid. This is the professional fee costs of completing due diligence at Corsewall Lighthouse Station.

UPS-HQ paid these via the Angels’ Share trust.

UPS members don’t need to worry about this tranche of fees. We are all in the big boys’ and big girls’ league at these larger projects and the fees “blossom” in the words of the lawyers!

Even then, we are not minded to overpay as for example, the…

£7,884 Legal Costs

…relating to the Corsewall Lighthouse Candidate Project evidenced by the first invoice below.

The independently audited legal fee total came to £7,884. Fortunately, this larger fee-note was readily reduced Were reduced to a flat £4,000 fee. This is because Russ McLean and UPS are clients of 20 years standing with the syndicate solicitors. Russ McLean (founder of UPS) and Iain Blackstock (senior partner) at Hay Cassels solicitors had a gentle discussion at the end of the current bid process and were both happy to have the audited £7,884 legal and professional fees reduced.

Not least, but the previous lighthouse stations UPS have acquired…

Davaar Island Lighthouses

+

Strathy Point Lighthouses

+

Aisla Craig Island Lighthouses

+

Noss Head Lighthouses

Have all successfully come back round after falling at the first hurdle. It is relatively common for a lighthouse candidate (and other syndicate genres) to fall at the first effort only to come back around and become a fully completed Unique property syndicate

In this light, Russ and Iain know there is a 50% likelihood of Corsewall Lighthouse compound eventually ending up in a UPS syndicate ownership. Consequently, the legal work undertaken thus far has a value. But in fairness to ALL syndicate members, Russ and the team believe it is prudent to set aside funds to cover these sorts of invoices that are an unavoidable cost of doing what we do. Russ and the UPS-HQ team believe the Angels’ Share is the best method.

Russ McLean, Founded Unique Property Bulletin At Davaar Lighthouse Station In 1987

The Founded Unique Property Syndicates During 1997.

This Photo Noss Lighthouse Statio, 22 Years Later At Noss Head Lighthouse Station

For reference, here are some of the invoices that the Angels’ Share has paid so as to avoid UPS members getting a shock. Though when Russ opened the envelope, he and his sporran (where the padlocked wallet lives) did shed a few Scottish tears. Wouldn’t you, if this landed through your letterbox…

Fortunately, many years of running these unique property club projects and the old boy abides by ensuring there is an emergency reserve. The Angels’ Share manages that without causing anyone any pain. Hopefully, UPS members can agree that this is a reasonable, possibly an elegant solution.

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The “real” and audited cost of Unique Property Syndicate progressing our interest in buying the Corsewall Lighthouse Station is £6570. Because of a 20 year long and mutually beneficial relationship between Unique Property Syndicates and the syndicate solicitors, this £6,570 (plus VAT) fee was substantially reduced to £4,000 (plus VAT). It was then paid by the Angels’ Share. As the movie end-credits might be paraphrased… “No UPS members were harmed in the making of this webpage!”

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Any questions, please contact:

Tel/Text: 0757 276 8795.

Or email: 

syndicate@uniquepropertysyndicate.co.uk

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To Order an Angels’ Share Form For Completion When Joining A Unique Property Syndicate

Click Here