Help please - reposession threat

mikey2341

Hi,

This is my first post here and am after some help, but guess it might be a long shot!

I took out a mortgage on a new house before selling my old house and have not managed to sell the old house. I've now spent all my savings on paying both mortgages and now have massive debts on top of this as I can't afford to pay both mortgages. I'm due to face court action next week regarding one of the properties, and whilst speaking with them they questioned why i still had the old mortgage on the other house - I explained I had always had that and that they knew about it when I took the mortgage out (i presumed I'd sell the other house easy!!) they then said it was a condition of the mortgage that there was not another mortgage in my name.

so the million dollar question here is, is someone accountable for negligence here? I understand it's my fault for not repaying the mortgages - but shouldnt the banks ensure that monthlyt payments can afford to be paid?

any help or advice would be greatly recieved

Thanks

Mikey

opinions4u

1) You should have read your mortgage offer - that was the bank telling you it was being responsible.
2) Your solicitor should have read your mortgage offer. Ask him/her why this was never discussed.
3) Take responsibility for your own decisions when you borrow money. The banks may not be perfect, but individuals really do need to look closely at their own decisions.

silvercar

When your solicitor completed on your house purchase they were also acting for the lender giving you the mortgage (at least this is normally the case). The solicitor's failure to ensure that all conditions were complied with is as much their fault as yours. Actually its twice as much the solicitor's blame as yours; once when they were representing you and once when they were representing the lender.

Presumeably when you took out the new mortgage, you knew you still had the old mortgage to pay and were happy to pay both until such a time as the first property sold. This was a decision that you took and only you can be responsible for. The solicitor had no more idea that the property market would collapse than you did.

If you rewind, the solicitor should have notified the lender that the first property wasn't sold. The lender would have then made a decision on whether to allow the mortgage to go ahead or not; who knows now what decision would have been made then. Even if this lender would have declined, others would have allowed it; some may have insisted that the old mortgage became a BTL mortgage, but you would still have been able to do what you did, so would still be in the situation you are in now.

If the lender gets heavy about it, I would refer them to your solicitor who acted for them. In the meantime you need to take action. Why isn't your house selling? Reduce the price and get rid of it!

SouthCoast

On the face of it your solicitor has been negligent by allowing you to exchange and complete on your purchase before you have sold your old property.

Contact the Solicitors Regulation Authority for advice:

http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/consumers.page

mikey2341

Thanks for the replies,

I'll contact the SRA for some advice and see what I can come up with. This is not a situation I really want to be in and it has cost me well over 100k in 2 mortgage payments and reducing the value of both houses by over 25 %.

Thanks again,

Mikey

minimike2

I perceive this as trying to shift blame. You knew what you were doing, now it has all gone wrong and you want someone else to take the fall.

We all have to take responsibility for our mistakes. Its just that these days, where money is involved, it always seems to be someone elses fault.

SouthCoast

Please let us know how you get on with the SRA.

AMILLIONDOLLARS

Drop the asking price on the house you're trying to sell! better than it being repossessed!! Secondly why did you not put it up for rent if you were having problems paying the mortage, some rent toward the cost would have been better than none

AMD