Hi Lea_HTH, Thank you for your reply. I am not going to be paying any shortfall, unless of course they only charge us a percentage of it. The outstanding mortgage (with interest, fees) is approx £82,000. This is not including estate agent fees, etc. They have accepted an offer of £71,000. The outstanding amount of the secured loan is around £7,800. I am still paying them on a monthly basis. They have not contacted us with regards to the repossession. I am assuming that the first charge has obviously told them? We tried to give the second charge our new address, but they refused to put it on their system for some unknown reason. I feel that now the house is no longer ours, to stop paying the loan. At the same time I also feel guilty for wanting to do so. I'm really not sure want to do. Currently there is only a default slapped on our credit files. When can I apply for an IVA?

Hi I am new to the forum so apologies if I have posted in the wrong place. I was wondering if someone could give me advice? Background: In 2010 my house (which I tried to sell off and on for 7 years) was taken of my hands by a guy who offered a lease option on our home. Basically he was meant to pay the mortgage and secured loan for a period of 6 years, rent it out in the meantime then buy the house at the end of the period. My wife and I moved into privately rented accommodation with our children. We found out christmas 2010 that the guy in question stopped paying the mortgage and subsequently went bankrupt. He had never paid the secured loan either so we ended up reinstating our DD for that earlier in the year. The guy in question also moved in non-paying tenants who refused to leave, so even if we wanted to move back into the property, we couldn't. To cut a long story short, we could not afford rent, secured loan and mortgage and the house was eventually repossessed Feb 2011. Today we received a letter from the bank stating they've had an offer for the house and there would be a shortfall. I'm estimating the shortfall to be approx £20,000 We are not wealthy people, and simply can't afford any shortfall. We have no assests for them to repossess either. My questions are: 1) What happens if we refuse to pay the shortfall? I know they can slap a CCJ on our files and threaten/force bankruptcy, but how likely is that? 2) We are still paying the secured loan on the property. I am starting to resent it now in all honesty! What happens if I stop paying it? It's not like they have a house to repossess? 3) We don't want to go down the bankruptcy route. However would we be able to take out an IVA taking into account the mortgage shortfall, and the secured (soon to be unsecured) loan? Any advice would be warmly welcomed!