Help Needed:- Advanced Notice Of Eviction Warrant Received 1st March

[Jellyspud]

Good Morning to everyone

 

First post on the forum and looking for any help possible.

 

Received advance notice dated 1st March from Eversheds acting on behalf of First Plus, in relation to their application to the Court for a Warrant of Possession. I appreciate at this stage that I can't submit anything to a court until I have the date of the Eviction Notice but wanted to do everything I possibly can to keep my home as I may deserve to be on the street but my hard working wife and 3 boys age 6, 8 & 9 don't deserve to be uprooted

 

Background To The Case

 

2nd Charge loan to FirstPlus with PPI taken out in October 2003- £38000 plus £7500 PPI over 180 months.

Originally fell into arrears in late 2008, an amount of arrears circa 2k was capitilised into the loan balance during February 2009 and our monthly instalment increased to £610, but partly due to trying to pay arrears on our 1st mortgage too we fell behind again. We received notice during August 2009 of FP's intention to have a Repossession Hearing, we agreed with their agent Clarity Management to pay the monthly instalment of £610 plus £175 per month towards the arrears which stood at £3760 at that time- this was around 8 weeks prior to the repossession hearing on 12th November 2009 but they still went ahead with the hearing. We were granted a Suspended Order at the hearing, having begun the new payment arrangement at the end of October 2009 prior to the hearing. We paid through on the new arrangement up to and including July 2010 (9 payments) which cleared £1750 off the arrears balance during that time.

 

In the meantime I had been forced to leave my job due to ill health during February 2010 and financial pressures started to hit us hard with 1 less income coming in & I wasn't able to make payments from August 2010 onwards. At the same time I had Council tax arrears building up to over £1000 which I agreed a plan with the Council to pay- thankfully the last payment for those arrears is on 16th March so some funds will be made available there. With regards to our 1st Mortgage with C&G we had built up arrears total over £3300 between November 2009 & May 2010. C&G very kindly agreed to convert our Mortgage to £211 interest only plus £51 per month towards the arrears balance over a 5 year period in May 2010- we have maintained this plan having made 10 payments since so arrears balance is now under £2800. The current mortgage balance is just short of 87k including the arrears with 17 years 2 months remaining (this is our 3rd mortgage provider since purchasing the property in 1999)

 

Back to the Firstplus arrears, they total £6280 between August 2010 & 1st March 2011 inclusive.

My wife is in a steady job for the last 13 years and my health has recovered enough to start my own business at the beginning of January. I feel as though we can put a case together to show we can now pay the monthly payment of £610 plus something towards the new arrears, maybe slightly less than the original agreed £175 but still a 3 figure sum. There is also the possibility of a lump sum payment in the region of £4400 being available when my late grandmothers home is sold shortly.

 

I understand I have a poor recent payment but sincerely hope its not too late to turn things around. I currently have a claim in for missold PPI for more than 10k with my solicitors Lambert & Pugh since March 2010, in reality the account has been in dispute since early 2007 when we first approached FirstPlus about the misselling. It was being dealt with by the FOS at the time the original Repossession Hearing came about. We noted this in the defence claim at the time but it was ignored by the Judge on the day. Even with the current increased arrears amount it would easily be cleared with a successful PPI reclaim. The solicitors have sent the claim to Counsel to begin Court Proceedings, but quite rightfully we have been advised not to expect an early resolution.

 

I'm mad with myself for not being able to keep up with the payments so far, but it causes me so much pain, knowing how much I have paid out in useless PPI premiums & interest relalting to it.

 

As of March 1st. I have 92 months remaining on this loan, my wish is first that I can convince a judge I can make an agreed payment plus some arrears and then try and agree something over the term. I can potentially pay an intitial payment around £700 to Firstplus on 16th March- I just hope the Warrant Date is not before this time.

 

Hopefully I haven't rambled too much & my post is not too disjointed, Any assistance will be greatly appreciated

[rebel11]

Hi jelly

 

Welcome to CAG

The guys will advise as soon as they are available.

[Jellyspud]

Hi much appreciated Rebel11. Thank you for taking the time to post on the thread.

[Ell-enn]

Hi there, if you let us know as soon as you get the eviction notice we can help you with the N244 application for a hearing to get it stopped.

[Jellyspud]

Thank you Ell-enn.

 

I'm bracing myself for it landing on the doormat tomorrow. I know the simple answer is 'all of it' and it can depend on the judge on the day if I request a hearing, but how much of a lump sum payment based on the arrears of £6280 would you think would give me a fighting chance?

[Ell-enn]

Make any payments you can in the meantime and we'll deal with the eviction notice when it arrives. In the meantime, if you are expecting funds from the sale of your grandmother's home, get together any documentation you have to support this - we can then submit it with the N244 to help your case.

 

Also, do you have a statement from the lender? does it show any arrears charges added to the account?

[Jellyspud]

Hi Ell-enn.

 

I have a solicitors letter advising of the Will information relating to my grandmother's home sale. We have not received any statement information since 2009 when we SAR'd Firstplus in preparation for entering litigation in respect of missold PPI. Firstplus do not otherwise provide a yearly statement of account to my knowledge so there may be some charges in there.

 

When that litigation begun last March, we were naturally advised by our solicitor to not have any contact with Firstplus that would affect the case.

 

An interesting thing I found out recently was that Firstplus have advised the DirectGov website that they offer a comparable scheme to the Mortgage Support Scheme- yet stretching back to our original financial difficulties in 2009 this was never ever discussed or offered as a temporary solution.

[Ell-enn]

We could do with a statement of account before the hearing. Send a letter (by recorded delivery) tomorrow to the solicitors who sent you notice of eviction proceedings, asking for an up to date statement of account - along the lines of:

Dear Sirs,

 

First Plus Account No:

Your reference:

 

I am in receipt of your letter of XXXX . In order to fully understand the current situation, please forward by return an up to date statement of my account with First Plus. We have received no annual statement since 2009 and I am advised that this should be provided as a matter of course.

 

How you respond to this request will, of course, be reported to the court in defence of your enforcement of the possession order.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

xxx

 

[Jellyspud]

Thank you Ell-enn I will draft a letter now and send it off tomorrow and update re the eviction date as soon as I receive it. Much appreciated for your time today. Take care.

[Jellyspud]

Just to update Ell-enn

 

Eviction warrant received today and is scheduled for 18th April 12 noon. Still awaiting a reply from Eversheds regarding the statement of account. I have completed a budget sheet today which is showing a surplus available towards the arrears amount of £82 per month after including the contractual £610 per month payment in the monthly outgoings.

 

Whilst its not my decision to make and I would not realistically expect a judge to agree to such a payment at an initial hearing without seeing some initial future payments being made, at that level of £82 per month it would clear the arrears in less than the 92 months remaining on the loan

 

That is of course, ignoring any future lump sum payments I may be able to make. I'll keep myself available Ell-enn to discuss the N244 form you mentioned earlier.

 

Thanks again

[Jellyspud]

Just an update and to pass on my thanks to Ell-enn again.

 

Successfully had the eviction suspended yesterday. I had waited till last week to submit the N244 application as was waiting for the statement of account to appear but it never did.

Had a really approachable judge who went out of his way to check we could afford my offer of £610 per month plus £90 towards the arrears balance. The agent for the other side, who who was unbelievably understanding, approached me before the hearing which caught me by surprise but basically agreed off the record that my proposal was acceptable to him, even though he would still oppose, as was his duty when initially addressed by the judge in the hearing. As it turns out he did oppose in the hearing but then prompted the judge regarding our earlier conversation and that he was happy the arrears would be paid off within the remaining 91 month term.

 

The judge in his closing statement pointed out I should check on any unauthorised arrears charges being added to the account and ruled without any attached conditions that the eviction was to be suspended with no interim hearing required. So a result all round and one that left me feeling like I'd won the lottery, at least at that time anyway.

 

I'll do my very best to continue contributing to the forum & any advice I can give to others. Cheers

[Ell-enn]

Excellent! well done

[kazma]

Well done

I have recently fought off (with the help of Ell-enn) an eviction by FirstPlus. To suspend the eviction FirstPlus said they wanted £150 on top of the monthly payment which we couldn't afford. They judge ruled we should pay an extra £35 per month (the minimun under the Norgan ruling), he said there was no point in asking us to pay an amount we would struggle with especially as the interest rate was high.

I also didn't get any statement of account from them despite asking on numerous occassions, we actually managed to get sight of one through the defense that Eversheds where submitting.

It took us 3 court appearances as we had recently got an FOS final decision in our favour regarding misselling PPI but FP had not acted on it. Each time we went to court we disputed what FP had done or more correctly not done in regards to the ppi refund (don't think the judge was too happy by the second appearance).

In regards to your ppi reclaim the only amount I got taken off the arrears was the amount I had already paid for the PPI and the PPI element for each monthly payment in arrears. although the second part was down to the judge ordering them to get the arrears figure correct. No way would they put the refund of ppi towards any arrears. (Pity as this would have cleared our arrears)

I don't trust FP one bit. They only told us the "correct" arrears figure 10 mins before the last hearing was due to start and expected us to just agree a figure with them (Luckily I had used statement from Evershed's defence to work out my own figures and they pretty much correct)

K