house been repossessed and we knew nothing of it until too late

[janieski]

long story but try to cut short, I had to move to London to secure work and be near sick mother in late august, I rang my lender, Halifax in early august asking for them to allow me to rent it out due to gaining work and being near sick mother and will be working away from now and be very busy with a sick relative too, I even gave them my new mobile number, as commuting would be horrendous and made more sense to rent it out, I was told to ring them back in 10 days once my request was put in for an answer ...they refused... I've been with friends living during week in London since and come back now and then to my house at weekends in first few weeks, but it was getting harder and harder to do this so sometimes I would not be back at house for 5- 6 weeks at a time..... Back in 20110 I got into arrears with my mortgage, but with mutual agreements with my lender I paid more on top through whole mortgage term, it never went to court. Now this august I missed a payment, first one ever since 2010, I had told them this on telephone, said I would pay it as soon as I could, I didn’t. anyway, I asked a friend this weekend to go to my house to collect mail as I had not been there for many weeks ( stupid I know, but it’s the way it is) when they went, they could not get in!!! keys would not fit locks, a neighbour spoke with friend who said someone was there other day and changed locks... so when I was told this I was scrating my heads for a while, I just could make head nor tale of it, what reasons... I nearly called police, but occurred to me to ring my bank, turns out all they could tell me only this as its a Saturday was, my homes been repossessed for one late missed payment, and I have to wait till Monday to speak with legal team part, as its not open at weekends... I’m in a complete panic here, I have ONLY missed one payment, due in August, and I’ve paid Septembers. Paid Octobers too.... how the hell, I know I should have got mail redirected, I know, so obviously I have letters about this, but I just have not had the chance to get to them to read as been working away and looking after sick mother too.

 

I dont understand whats gone on, except they must of wrote to me, and because Ive not been around Ive not see the letters of threat of court actions, so I have not had any chance to contact them back and defend myself, and because of this they gone and got repo because I didnt even turn up at court. What can I do , I really need advice, what do I say to Halifax legal team first thing Monday Morning??? Help

[Lea_HTH]

You'll need to speak to them to find out exactly what has occurred. However, the fact that you had arrears previously and had made an arrangement to repay those arrears over the remaining term of the loan suggests the arrears were fairly high - if so, that explains their swift action, and the obtaining of the PO with what you think is only one missed payment.

 

You will need to apply to have the PO set aside - you will do this using a form N244, and will need to show that your attendance at the hearing would have produced a different outcome (possibly an SPO instead). The fact that you did not give the mortgagee a forwarding address means they can legitimately serve papers on the property, so you cannot use non-receipt as an excuse (well, you could, but I would expect any solicitor's agent sent to the court on behalf of the mortgagee to make mince-meat of that argument).

 

Come back after you've spoken to the mortgagee and found out exactly what happened, exactly how much the arrears are, how many missed payments it amounts to and whether or not they are prepared to enter into negotiations at this stage pending a set aside application.

[janieski]

Hi Lea,

 

Thanks for the reply so fast, it helps me greatly, I will get back to you after we have called them, where do I send this N244 form to, do you now how much it costs? also i forgot about this, i emailed them to make them aware of my contact details, this is the only evidence I do have dated in begining of september 2012 telling them about my new mobile number and forwarding address and email address, three ways to contact me,I never got an acknoweldgement though back by email... would this stand up in court?

 

Regards'

Edited November 10, 2012 by janieski

[janieski]

Update...

sick to our stomachs, we can’t believe this whole mess we are in now, we got to speak with the negotiator only this afternoon, after waiting for over 48 hours after numerous telephone calls and being told to go from one dept. to another, it was like no one knew who was dealing with our possession.... we got a few shocks told to us too along the way, first one was we learnt we had been taken to court in December 2010 for a possession but suspended possession order was made, that was when we got into arrears very first time, and because we missed an august payment this year, that how they went straight in and changed locks...BUT!, we had NO KNOWLEDGE of this court date, or that it even happened until we was told today on the telephone, can you believe this, it’s like I am making this up, but I am not, we never again received NO court paperwork back in Dec 2010, also we found out our mortgage had gone up due to base rates another £20 a month, yet ours in behind the base rates , we was told a letter had been sent out in May regarding that, again we never got it, and on top of this, whilst we was not at the house they had sent a mortgage field agent to the property, as we had not responded to their letter ( which we couldn’t because we was away from the property at the time all letters are still in house locked) our lovely horrible nosey neighbour who we had run in before had purposely gone out of her way to speak with the field agent and told them " oh they are away in London, and their tenants have just moved out few days ago" we are like what the blood hell! on the phone after hearing all this, how can so many letters not get to us, how could we even defend our self’s if we wasn’t even aware of anything, i.e. court hearing, suspended possession order, letters about mortgage gone up, and now a fecking nosey neighbour has even added into it with wrong information, it could not get any worse, we eventually spoke with the negotiator dept. today explained ALL of it again to him this person was arguing every point, saying it was our responsibility to keep them updated etc., which we argued we did, we gave forwarding details on the telephone back in late august and early July, and had even sent an email to email address given by the lenders telephone advisor, we have a copy of the email still, we also had spoken with Halifax a few other times too to do with different things, at not one point in any of those conversations did they mention we had a suspended possession order over my home, this really beggars belief, my wife has been in tears for last few days since finding this all out, we left it on the note with the negotiator what we wanted, which was the house back, and to pay extra on top to clear the areas off sooner and appealed to their better side and hoped they would agree, now we been told to wait whilst he puts all this forward to this board of people....... all this has been so stressful on me and my family, we cannot believe how just not getting some letters can cause all this, I am so surprised when I asked don’t any letters get recorded? and was told no, I’m am shocked such important letters are just put into normal post and with way royal mail have lost my mail so many times over the years it’s just plain wrong

 

I just don’t know what’s our next move if they say no or come up with some demand i.e. pay off all areas in one go, as we can’t really afford that right now, maybe half but that’s all.... what can we do legally, any advice, anyone, I’m pretty desperate here , I’m so stressed!!

Edited November 14, 2012 by janieski

[Lea_HTH]

You will need to apply to the court to have the order set aside...though to be honest, reading your first post and the fact that you had a prior arrangement to repay arrears sort of indicates that even if you claim you knew nothing of the SPO, you certainly knew that you had arrears. Missing a payment, even if only one, under an SPO can lead to a warrant being issued, which is clearly what has happened here, rather than the mortgagee obtaining an outright possession order as your initial post implied.

 

Your best bet is to negotiate with the mortgagee - offer the lump sum and a reasonable payment to clear the remainder. It is entirely up to them whether they are prepared to negotiate at this point.

 

If you have to resort to court action, then the court's powers are somewhat limited, and you will need to show evidence that you either didn't receive the paperwork and that you acted promptly, or that you didn't receive notice of the proceedings - if you didn't attend the hearing, then that helps support your case, however, since the proceedings were in 2010 and you had an arrangement to clear arrears, it'll probably be quite difficult to prove to the court at this juncture that you knew nothing about it or that you acted promptly.

 

As I said, your best chance of getting back into the property is to negotiate with the lender, so if you can reduce those arrears by 50%, then I suggest you make that offer as quickly as possible.

 

Incidentally, the number of letters a high street lender like the Halifax would send out when payments are missed, let alone the paperwork that would be sent not only by them, by their solicitors and by the court, means that it is very difficult to believe that you received nothing at all. If they had the wrong address, that would go some way to explaining that - but sending letters to the address that the mortgage is attached to is perfectly reasonable.

[Lea_HTH]

Oh, and please use paragraphs and punctuation in your next post - it is exceedingly difficult to make sense of dense blocks of text as in your last post.

[Danny321]

Update...

sick to our stomachs, we can’t believe this whole mess we are in now, we got to speak with the negotiator only this afternoon, after waiting for over 48 hours after numerous telephone calls and being told to go from one dept. to another, it was like no one knew who was dealing with our possession.... we got a few shocks told to us too along the way, first one was we learnt we had been taken to court in December 2010 for a possession but suspended possession order was made, that was when we got into arrears very first time, and because we missed an august payment this year, that how they went straight in and changed locks...BUT!, we had NO KNOWLEDGE of this court date, or that it even happened until we was told today on the telephone, can you believe this, it’s like I am making this up, but I am not, we never again received NO court paperwork back in Dec 2010, also we found out our mortgage had gone up due to base rates another £20 a month, yet ours in behind the base rates , we was told a letter had been sent out in May regarding that, again we never got it, and on top of this, whilst we was not at the house they had sent a mortgage field agent to the property, as we had not responded to their letter ( which we couldn’t because we was away from the property at the time all letters are still in house locked) our lovely horrible nosey neighbour who we had run in before had purposely gone out of her way to speak with the field agent and told them " oh they are away in London, and their tenants have just moved out few days ago" we are like what the blood hell! on the phone after hearing all this, how can so many letters not get to us, how could we even defend our self’s if we wasn’t even aware of anything, i.e. court hearing, suspended possession order, letters about mortgage gone up, and now a fecking nosey neighbour has even added into it with wrong information, it could not get any worse, we eventually spoke with the negotiator dept. today explained ALL of it again to him this person was arguing every point, saying it was our responsibility to keep them updated etc., which we argued we did, we gave forwarding details on the telephone back in late august and early July, and had even sent an email to email address given by the lenders telephone advisor, we have a copy of the email still, we also had spoken with Halifax a few other times too to do with different things, at not one point in any of those conversations did they mention we had a suspended possession order over my home, this really beggars belief, my wife has been in tears for last few days since finding this all out, we left it on the note with the negotiator what we wanted, which was the house back, and to pay extra on top to clear the areas off sooner and appealed to their better side and hoped they would agree, now we been told to wait whilst he puts all this forward to this board of people....... all this has been so stressful on me and my family, we cannot believe how just not getting some letters can cause all this, I am so surprised when I asked don’t any letters get recorded? and was told no, I’m am shocked such important letters are just put into normal post and with way royal mail have lost my mail so many times over the years it’s just plain wrong

 

I just don’t know what’s our next move if they say no or come up with some demand i.e. pay off all areas in one go, as we can’t really afford that right now, maybe half but that’s all.... what can we do legally, any advice, anyone, I’m pretty desperate here , I’m so stressed!!

 

Hi just been reading your post, sorry about the news, I'm in a similar situation, was wondering how did you get on with the n244 form at court?