I am having a pretty good time at the minute paying off old debts and I feel really good about some advice I received on here yesterday about my car finance. I was going to make an offer to Shoosmiths about an outstanding mortgage shortfall (£5097.28)but thought I best run the situation by all of you.

When I was in financial difficulty back in 2013 it was exasperated by a fallout I had with somebody I bought a house with in 2005. They hadn't been paying towards the mortgage for the previous 5 years and I was covering the cost it by myself. When I had other financial pressures I couldn't afford to pay the mortgage on the house alone and in agreement with the friend I bought it with we spoke to Dudley BS and told them we wanted to hand the keys back. We signed some kind of paperwork that they sent us and returned it to them with the keys. (my memory is a little hazy on this but I thing they made us go into 3 months arrears before they allowed us to do this but I'm not sure).

Shoosmiths got in touch last year to say that I could make them an offer to settle my liability with them and I was going to make them an offer this week. I read on here though that it is unusual for them to release somebody from their liability.

I was going to send them a letter to request a breakdown of the amount however I wasn't sure if a SAR would be better? Or even making them a F & F as planned?

As before any help would be very well apreciated.

I suspect if you paid an amount, it would be a settlement for all parties on the mortgage. Quite often Mortgage companies will accept reduced F&F settlements, because they have already covered off most of the loss on their accounts using a form of contingency insurance. But a condition of this is that they chase the debt. A relative of mine paid of a mortgage debt for less than 10% of the debts value. I think it was £2k to pay off a £30k debt.

It is worth sending the mortgage company an SAR for all records regarding the mortgage and repossession process. Then armed with the information you can assess the situation. If the shortfall is only £5k including all the various costs, then i should imagine the mortgage was basically cleared by the sale price and the £5k is the costs they incurred.

You could send them the affixed mortgage shortfall SAR letter.... They are obliged to get the best price for the property and protect your interests.

Make sure you send by a signed for service and keep the post office receipt so you can check on the royalmail website a few days later to print off the signature receipt. Keep that print off with a copy of the letter.