Hi,

I have received paperwork last week from NRAM / Wallers solicitors with a court date of 25th July and a claim for possession.

I bought my house in 2006 and have issues with either me or my partner not working since almost the beggining.

It seems like every time one of us works the other is laid off, leading to a mass of mortgage arrears.

We got back on top in Jun 2010 and was making our regular instalment plus £100 extra (totalled £600).

At this point they said they would capitalise the arrears.

This made our payment £662.

My partner was then laid off (again) and we have ammassed arrears since then, totalling £8.5k as I have stupidly been paying off all our other debts rather than the mortgage.

This may sound daft but it seemed that 1 letter per month from NRAM was better than 15 or 16 from our creditors......

To cut a long story short I wrote to NRAM last month to ask for details of charges etc that had been applied,

they wrote back saying I need to do an SAR (fair enough), but in the meatime have started proceedings.

We are now both working and in a position to pay regular,

I was wondering if there was anyone who could help me write a defence.

Thanks in advance for all your help,

an urgent response would be appreciated due to the short timescales.

Cheers

Can anyone help?

Hi there, I can help you with your defence. Have you done a budget sheet to work out exactly what your finances are? Your mortgage, council tax and utility bills are your priority, everything else will have to make do with negotiated smaller payments if necessary (we can help you with that too). I have affixed the budget sheet we normally use - it calculates automatically as you fill it in. Let me know when you have completed it and I'll make a start on your statement for defence.

In the meantime can you answer the following:P

Is the mortgage in joint names?

Do you have any children living at home?

How many payments do you think you have missed ?

Budget Sheet.xls

Hi,APologies for the delay in response, and thank you for responding. In answer to your questions:Is the mortgage in joint names? Yes - I bought the house in 2006 with my best friend, but he has very little to do with it.Do you have any children living at home? No - but I do have a 26 month old boy who lives with his mum but stays with me at weekends.How many payments do you think you have missed ? Arrears were capitaised in Aug 2010 (For around 10 payments), only made 1 payment since.Can start paying a portion this month (probably around £300) and full payments as of August as 2 of my CCJ's finish and my loan.Do you need me to send you the budget sheet once I have completed?Thanks in advance for your help.

Can anyone help? Panicking now as the hearing is next week.

Hi, I'll try and do the defence statement this afternoon - on your budget sheet how much does it show you can afford towards the arrears ?

Hi,Thank you.If I put £60 towards the arrears that leaves £34.90 total left over for emergencies etc.The total remaining after everything was £94.90.Many thanks

Can anyone help? Panicking now as the hearing is next week.

I thought it was on 25th July?

Hi, you don't need to fill in the forms sent to you by the court - the affixed statement and budget sheet will be ok. You need to fill in the info where there are XXX's at the top (remove the XXX;s) the info you need will be on the court forms. Read through it carefully to make sure everything is OK. When you print it out, your printer needs to be set for A4 paper (not Letter size) so it all stays on one page.

On the budget sheet – write the Claim number on the top left hand corner and Appendix 1 on the top right hand corner.

Now assemble as follows:

Statement - signed

Budget Sheet - Appendix 1

Make sure it is stapled securely together. You will need to take a photocopy of it all for yourselves so you have a set to refer to in the hearing. You need to hand it in to the court asap. Ask the court staff if there will be any free legal advisors on duty on the day of your hearing.

S4ddys Statement for court.doc

Thank you so much for your help, not sure what I would have done without you as CAB quoted 3 weeks for an appointment - not good!!!!!!I help out on here with the payday loans section giving advice which I hope people find useful as I have a lot of first hand experience of most of the companies, but it is nice to get help from other members of the forum on areas of which I have no knowledge.Once again many thanks for all your help.Will let you know the outcome in due course.regardss4

OK, make sure you ask at the court if there are any free legal advisors on duty that day. If there are, approach them and they can accompany you into the hearing and support your case.

hi,Just to give you an update. Attended yesterday for the hearing. There was a duty solicitor on so had a chat with her and she accompanied me into the hearing, she was really good. The hearing didnt go as well as planned - the judge ordered I pay £120 rather than £60 on top - but better than losing my house so happy days for now.The only other thing to add was he commented on the section 'entertainment'. I had put £100 per month as this is what I usually spend entertaining kids etc but he wasnt happy about that, he also highlighted the cigarettes section as an area to quit (obviously if only it was that easy). My feedback would be to change the entertainment heading to something more suitable i.e. leisure activities (probably not the best example) or something along those lines....Thanks again for your help.

Hi all,

I am looking for a bit of advice. I took a mortgage with a friend back in 2010 for a total of 89k (95% mortgage + 5% unsecured loan).

About 2 years later due to personal problems the house was repossessed (completely my fault I struggled with gambling at the time and basically spent the money - yes I know - stupid!). This left 57k outstanding.

I did my best to try and resolve the situation, but at the time I only earned around 15k a year and could only afford £15 per month.

They accepted this and I moved address a couple of times so never really thought anything of it whilst trying to rebuild my life.

The standing order remained in place and has done since the repossession approximately 5 years ago, but I have never received any further letters (assuming because they no longer have my address).

Anyway, 5 years later I am now married, and also rebuilt the relationship with my friend. He had also moved address and heard nothing further.

He contacted me the other day and said a letter had been received at his mums about the debt (still approx 57k) and questioned what to do.

So - I am looking for some advice - what should I do? My circumstances have now changed but still wouldn't be able to pay a significant amount towards the debt (other priorities / 3 kids / claiming tax credits).

The other thing is they have marked the debt on my credit file as satisfied - I have worked really hard over the past few years to repair my credit file (the last default drops off in June) and dont want to ruin it again by having an IVA so this really isnt an option.

Am I just expected to keep paying for it forever or does there come a point where enough is enough?

Many thanks in advance. D

Anyone?