RBS and repossession

[Steve Glos]

Bit of background : I was out of work for over 18 months. We tried to work with RBS about not being able to make mortgage payments but they wouldn't respond.

 

2 years ago I got back into work and once we had got money coming in again we started making payments again (more than we needed to) and wrote to RBS about using the difference between the value of the house and the mortgage to absorb the arrears. Again there was a deafening silence from RBS ... but no notice of repossession.

 

Fast forward to this August when we get a letter (dated the 6th but sent second class so it arrived on the 10th) from them saying we needed to make an offer of increased payment to avoid repossession. Having no idea how much they would want I phoned them and they said that if we made any offer over £984 it would be fine - we were paying £900 when the actual mortgage payment is approx £860

 

So we made an offer of £1000 a month from August 30th and actually increased the payment to that amount.

 

We heard nothing back until 4th Sept when they wrote back saying that the offer wasn't enough and they has passed my account onto their solicitors. I phoned them to ask why given that they had told me that anything over £984 would be more than sufficient and I was told that it was because they had changed their rules and now all arrears have to be repaid within 2 years. As our revised payment wasn't going to do that they had passed it on but it would be for a suspended repossession order. I asked if they would provide that statement in writing as frankly RBS have been so unreliable I didn't actually believe them.

 

Today I get a letter from their solicitors saying that they want to repossess the house. I phoned them and they basically said that RBS had not said anything like that. So I'm now filling in another financial income/expenditure form and hoping that they see sense.

 

In March I had a mortgage statement showing that the outstanding balance on the mortgage was £131,082.65 with arrears of £14,751.94.

 

The letter from the solicitors today shows the outstanding balance of my mortgage is £128,187.13 with arrears of £13,597.54

 

So in the space of 5 months I've reduced my mortgage by £2895 and the arrears by £1154.

 

Should I put a letter explaining this in when I return the expenditure forms to the solicitors? Also what sort of position does this leave me in when it goes to court?

 

Thanks.

 

Steve

Edited September 11, 2013 by Steve Glos

[Lea_HTH]

How many years are left on the mortgage? With your current rate of payment towards the arrears, £140 per month, it will take you over 8 years to clear the arrears. If you have more than eight years left on your mortgage term, then a court is very likely to award the mortgagee a suspended possession order on those terms - which is good news for you, as so long as you stick to the agreed payment, nothing further will happen.

 

With that level of arrears you are very unlikely to get an adjournment on the possession proceedings, so an SPO is the best you can hope for if it gets to that stage.

 

I wouldn't suggest going to any of the 'quick sale' options the poster above mentioned - they are usually scams ultimately in that they hit those when at their lowest, making huge profits for themselves, but still leaving you homeless. You're better off dealing with the mortgagee that you have and coming to an agreement - and if you can't, or they won't, then going to court is not going to be the worst thing you could face, so long as you can afford the payments you are offering.

[Steve Glos]

There are over 10 years left of the mortgage and as I said before increasing the payment we paid off over £1100 of arrears in 5 months so adding another £100 a month to that is only going to pay it off faster. To be honest I'm quite happy with a SPO - I know I can make the repayments. I assume that with a SPO I can, if my circumstances change, increase the payment at any time?

 

Also will I have to attend the court for this or is it done like a CCJ?

 

I'm not looking at quick sale options - it just sounds like digging a bigger hole rather than getting out of one. I'm trying to work with my creditors to get things paid off. I'm not proud of the situation I got in and I don't like being in it.

Edited September 12, 2013 by Steve Glos

[Lea_HTH]

You must attend the possession hearing. With your level of arrears, non-attendance could result in an outright order. If you attend and show the judge your I&E and prove affordability, then the judge is very likely to suspend any order made. It is unlikely that you'll get an adjournment, but there'd be no harm in asking the judge to consider it, given that you have made an offer and stuck to paying it, even though the mortgagee hasn't been particularly helpful in relation to telling you to pay X and then saying it's not enough.

 

If there is an SPO and you cannot afford the payments for some reason, then you can go back to court to ask to vary the order, to reduce the offer you have made...and if you feel you can pay more,you can do that just by paying it - the court will only be interested in you meeting the payment you offered and it ordered - paying more is absolutely fine. The sooner the arrears are cleared and kept cleared, the sooner you can apply to the court for the SPO to be discharged.

[Steve Glos]

I'm just annoyed that RBS told me 984 would do it and then changed their mind and went straight to their solicitors. I've had the paperwork from them and filled in another income and expenditure form and upped my offer by another 100 per month so I'm now offering them 1100 a month in total which would, if their previous payment figures are connect, mean that I will pay the arrears off over the next 29 months ... which is 5 months over this new "2 year limit" that RBS have decided to apply.

[Steve Glos]

Now this is getting silly.

 

We made an improved offer.

 

Rejected - "Client requires arrears to be cleared in two years" and they tell us to make an improved offer or "attend the hearing once set to put forward your offer to the district judge"

 

We've worked that out as just over 500 a month over the mortgage - but as paying 900 a month (about 40 over the mortgage) seemed to be apparently clearing the arrears at 220 a month we don't know exactly how much to offer them and RBS didn't tell us how much we have to pay them (well they did but then changed their minds and when I last talked to them the woman seemed totally incapable of actually working out how much they want from us.. just said pay it off in two years) and neither will drysdensfairfax who seem to simply be parroting the same statement but seem incapable of telling us how much we have to pay them each month to do this.

 

So do I phone them as ask them exactly what amount they want and to put that in writing so we have some record of it. RBS seem to be very unwilling to commit any actual figures to paper.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Steve Glos

[northernbloke]

How can RBS make up their own rules about how long you can take to pay off arrears when thanks to Mrs Norgan's case you can lawfully pay them off over the existing mortgage term? I assume they are just playing on people's ignorance.

[Steve Glos]

I think RBS are doing the legal version of "sending the boys round". They are pushing for us to spend more that 50% of our monthly income to pay the mortgage and arrears. They won't tell me how much I need to pay a month to clear it - as the 900 I was paying (which I've now upped to 1100) seemed to be paying off 220 a month - so now we'd be paying off 420 a month. They wont put any figures down in writing, they changed their minds on how much I had to pay after they had told me how much I had to pay. At no time since they sent us the letter saying I wasn't paying the arrears off fast enough have they indicated how much they want. I suspect they either want it all in one go or they want my house. There is more than enough difference between the mortgage and the value of the house (as valued in March 2012) to pay the arrears.

[Series3]

try not to get worried, been through this myself, not as scary as you expect.

Your offer is more than enough.

The judge decides how much off the arrears you pay, not them.

Try to keep everything by letter, all your offers and their reply's, you can then show to court.

Looks like they're trying to squeeze you for more.

Work out how much you need to pay extra over the life of the mortgage.

make the offer, pay it.

that's all they will get in court.