Thread: Seeking advice re giving my house up

Bit of a strange one here, well I think it is! Long one too sorry.

We fell behind on our mortgage a couple of years ago due to my husband being out of work due to illness, hes self employed. We went to court and agreed to pay back a set amount on the arrears, this was fine for a while but we struggled and fell behind again.

Basically we were chasing our tails trying to cover the mortgage and the extra and simply couldnt do it. Mortgage company didnt want to know and wouldnt reduce the amount, they went to court to take the house back and we were given a date to leave.

We (somehow) came up with enough to halt the eviction and let us try again, but as they would not reduce the payments we still coudnt do it. I should add here that the council said a flat no to rehousing us until we were actually out on the street and as we have six children we couldnt risk having nowhere to go, hence us trying for so long to stay in the house. We also couldnt rent as due to the arrears we had bad credit history and were putting every penny onto the mortgage leaving nothing for rent and deposit.

Anyways, we carried on for a while, then we were given the chance to rent a house moving in with just one months rent, so we stopped paying the mortgage to pay for rent and we moved out. This was in February 09. We rang the mortgage to say we had left and they said we would hear from them. Well, we are now in June and apart from normal monthly statements, we have heard nothing and the arrears are mounting up. £5000 ish now.

My question is, why have they not taken the house back by now? I dont understand, if they were going to be this slow we would have held on and try and sort it, as it stands now, we are in a better position financially and could afford the mortgage, but with the arrears they are now they would want a crazy amount off the arears. I dont see why they dont just take it back, or let me add some of the arrears to the mortgage and we would move back in as I love that house dearly.

I just dont get it, I know we could hand the keys back, but and I know it sounds stupid, if there was the smallest chance we could ever move back in there we would.

Any advice or suggestions would be very much appreciated please.

Oh, the company is Kensington who are impossible to talk to as I just find them all a load of arrogant, patronising ...........you fill in the blanks......

oh dear Kensington rear their ugly head again.

What isd happening with the property at the moment is it empty/secured etc?


Also with reference to the arrears if you make an offer of a small amount over the MP then they take you to court it is up to the court NOT the lender as to whether you are evicted.

I think you have to think long and hard about this. If you asked them to capatalise the arrears and recalculate your MP then you could probably afford to stay there.

You need to read the new protocol for lenders and also have a look at the Shelter website there is some interesting info on there.

Thanks for the advice there, the property is empty at the moment as we moved out into rented. But we go back every other day to check on it, we only moved two streets away.

We got this rented house by pure luck and Im just worried that if we move back in and it goes belly up, then we probably wont get the chance of rented again with our credit history and lack of deposit etc.

Its so hard because when we go back to check the house just makes me want to move back even more, its nothing special or in a posh area or anything, but it was ours. Kensington are such arses to talk to and I just dont understand why they have not contacted us, even by phone? They have all the numbers etc. Just dosent make any sense to me. I dont want to hand the keys back if there is a chance to save it, would just feel like throwing it away, I think we both assumed they would have repossesed it by now. They certainly didnt hang around the first time they took us to court!

Hi there, I know Kensington have set up a special team to deal with cases like this. I'll try and find out the number to ring.

Back shortly.

in the meantime try doing an income and expenditure spreadsheet on your current circumstances to see what you could reasonably afford.

do you have equity in the property do you think?

Hi, you need to contact the Special Services Team they are based in Reading - 0800 111 020 and ask to be put through to them.

Hi

We rang them yesterday and they said as yet they have not started any action against us?? (Why Ive no idea)

They said if we pay 3 months mortgage payments on time with an amount off the arrears, then after the three months they will let us capitalise the arrears and recalculate the mortgage payments.

We have to tell them by Thursday (tomorrow) what we are offering off the arrears and tell them over the phone our income/expenditure.

Whats do you make of that? What are the chances of us moving back in, giving up this rented house and them actually sticking to what they said. I know how underhand Kensington are and dont trust them one bit, but I do want my house back. We have till tomorrow but will be ringing them today as we just want to know what is happening, its driving us nuts!

Would you take the risk?

You need to get that offer from them in writing - either email or letter. Fill in the affixed budget sheet to see what you can offer towards the arrears.
Remember when you are filling it in that the amount you are offering towards the arrears is the amount left over after everything else has been paid and make sure it is what you can afford (not what you think they'll want) for the next three months.

If they can give you what they've said in writing then it's probably worth taking the chance. But you do need to get it in writing.

Thank you so much for the advice, its very much appreciated.

I will be getting it in writing as I just dont trust them one bit.
My husband will be ringing them in a few minutes to make the offer, I personally dont think they will accept it as in the past they have wanted silly money off the arrears.
The debt guy they send out to you went through our expenditure (last year) and worked out we could afford to pay the mortgage and the mortgage again each month, yeah okay, if we could afford over a grand a month mortgage we would be in a better house in a much nicer area!! I refused to see him the last time they tried to send him out to me. And to pay for the pleasure of his visit too, fantastic.

But we will see, I will update when we have an answer, good or bad.......

Please do let us know what they say

Well, our offer was accepted and it will be put in writing in the post to us!!
They did actually say that they have so many people in arrears that they are not refusing any sensible offers of repayment from anyone.

So, very VERY happy here and looking forward to going home again!!!!

Cant thank you all enough for the advice given to me here!!!!

Off to start collecting boxes to move........again!

Wonderful news! I had already heard of someone else in your position being allowed back to their property under a payment plan agreed with the Special Services Team, but didn't want to get your hopes up in case you couldn't get the same deal.

Make sure you keep that letter from them in a VERY safe place, in fact take a photocopy as well and keep that somewhere else.

Let us know when you get back into the house - I do hope you will be happy there for a long time to come

Ellx

Thank you, we will be happy there for a long time, we always were happy

It wasnt the Special Services Team that we dealt with, it was the Litigation people. So although they had not started action against us yet, I think they must have been about to soon.

Think we contacted them just in the nick of time

Thanks again, just shows that even with heavy arrears there is still hope and its still worth a try, my arrears at the moment are £5993, so we have a long way to go, but we WILL get there