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Diary of a repossession
needahome_2
Posts: 166 Forumite
to sum up the story a couple bought a house for £159,000 it went up to £400,000.
they mewed the house, blew the money away and are now blaming the credit crunch.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1089408/Diary-repossession-One-couple-describes-agony-losing-luxury-400-000-home-credit-crunch.html
heres some excerpts from the article
MARCH 2006
We're throwing a party to celebrate the completion of our new £20,000 bespoke wooden kitchen and my father's 90th birthday. As I prepare food for 35 guests on our range cooker and sunshine floods in through the French doors, I can't help feeling proud.
APRIL 2006
House prices are rising fast and both Paul and I think investing in a buy-to-let property is a good idea. Paul wants to retire at 60 and believes we need to make the next ten years really work for us in terms of earning money. He's always worked hard.
MAY 2006
Exciting news. Paul and a business partner have found a printing company to buy. It's on the market for £700,000. It sounds a lot of money, but the turnover is £1.3million a year and it already employs 22 staff.
Paul buys a new BMW Z4 plus a small Rover for our younger son Adam, who's joining him in the new business. That weekend we take both the boys out to a restaurant for a celebratory dinner.
AUGUST 2006
PAUL has been coming home very stressed. The reality is starting to emerge that the business simply isn't what we thought it was. Bills have been arriving - some for tens of thousands of pounds.
I am economising as much as possible, but our overdraft is increasing. Gone are the days of food shopping in M&S; now I am bargain-hunting in Morrisons. But even if I go full time, my salary just isn't enough to stretch to paying all our bills, which are spiralling out of control.
OCTOBER 2006
Every morning, I wake up feeling sick that for the first time in our lives we are struggling financially.
Every time I look out of the French doors at our beautiful garden, I can feel tears welling up at our situation. I
FEBRUARY 2007
Orders are slowly coming in, but not fast enough - Paul and I are still scratching around for money. Our credit card debt alone is approaching £50,000 and we are falling behind on those repayments.
JULY 2007
I am wondering how thinly I can slice a small chicken to share between all four of us when Paul comes home to tell me the company's finished and he's been advised to take bankruptcy
AUGUST 2007
Paul comes home white-faced after making all the staff redundant, including our son Adam. Our BMW and Adam's car are returned
NOVEMBER 2007
He's been sending off job application forms, but nothing has come in. Mortgage rates are rising and our mortgage payments are £2,400 per month, but we can hardly afford to eat.
We write to the bank saying we cannot afford to pay it this month, offering them £500 a month instead and telling them the house is up for sale. A year ago defaulting would have been unthinkable, but we have no choice.
DECEMBER 2007
The estate agent rings to say can we drop our asking price by £20,000? We refuse
APRIL 2008
The BAS writes to the bank on our behalf with the offer from a friend to pay £500 a month on the mortgage until the house is sold. But the bank says the only way to stop the repossession is to pay off all the arrears in a lump sum - a staggering £50,000 (the amount that's built up ever since we have not been able to pay the monthly payment in full), including fees and accrued interest.
We phone to discuss it, but the bank asks us to hand over the keys. We refuse because we still hope to sell.
JUNE 2008
Misery everywhere with talk of the credit crunch. No viewings, no offers. And no job offers for Paul, either. A friend has offered to pay for us to rent a nearby two-bedroom holiday cottage and to put our furniture into storage. It's so kind that I am close to tears again.
AUGUST 2008
We can't face the bailiffs. The weekend before the eviction, we post the keys back to the bank.
.
Clearing out my hand-made kitchen cupboards as we prepare to leave, I am suddenly overwhelmed by tears. We try to keep things in perspective - worse things could happen - but the truth is we have lost everything.
SEPTEMBER 3, 2008
'Our' house is officially repossessed. When we leave, I can't look back because I feel so sad and lonely.
OCTOBER 2008
Incredibly, the nightmare isn't over. The amount we now owe on our mortgage has leapt from £250,000 to £330,000 because of repossession fees.
Worse, for a quick sale HBOS has reduced the asking price to just £260,000.
Devastatingly, this would leave a shortfall of around £70,000 to pay back. We thought having our house repossessed was the end of it, but we were terribly wrong.
NOVEMBER 2008
We are reeling with anger. HBOS has accepted an offer of just £255,000 for Richmond House. We can't believe how uncaring it is to sell the house for such a ridiculous price.
The revelation that after all this we still owe £80,000 to the bank in the run-up to Christmas - and they can bankrupt me, too, to get it - sends us back into despair.
they mewed the house, blew the money away and are now blaming the credit crunch.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1089408/Diary-repossession-One-couple-describes-agony-losing-luxury-400-000-home-credit-crunch.html
heres some excerpts from the article
MARCH 2006
We're throwing a party to celebrate the completion of our new £20,000 bespoke wooden kitchen and my father's 90th birthday. As I prepare food for 35 guests on our range cooker and sunshine floods in through the French doors, I can't help feeling proud.
APRIL 2006
House prices are rising fast and both Paul and I think investing in a buy-to-let property is a good idea. Paul wants to retire at 60 and believes we need to make the next ten years really work for us in terms of earning money. He's always worked hard.
MAY 2006
Exciting news. Paul and a business partner have found a printing company to buy. It's on the market for £700,000. It sounds a lot of money, but the turnover is £1.3million a year and it already employs 22 staff.
Paul buys a new BMW Z4 plus a small Rover for our younger son Adam, who's joining him in the new business. That weekend we take both the boys out to a restaurant for a celebratory dinner.
AUGUST 2006
PAUL has been coming home very stressed. The reality is starting to emerge that the business simply isn't what we thought it was. Bills have been arriving - some for tens of thousands of pounds.
I am economising as much as possible, but our overdraft is increasing. Gone are the days of food shopping in M&S; now I am bargain-hunting in Morrisons. But even if I go full time, my salary just isn't enough to stretch to paying all our bills, which are spiralling out of control.
OCTOBER 2006
Every morning, I wake up feeling sick that for the first time in our lives we are struggling financially.
Every time I look out of the French doors at our beautiful garden, I can feel tears welling up at our situation. I
FEBRUARY 2007
Orders are slowly coming in, but not fast enough - Paul and I are still scratching around for money. Our credit card debt alone is approaching £50,000 and we are falling behind on those repayments.
JULY 2007
I am wondering how thinly I can slice a small chicken to share between all four of us when Paul comes home to tell me the company's finished and he's been advised to take bankruptcy
AUGUST 2007
Paul comes home white-faced after making all the staff redundant, including our son Adam. Our BMW and Adam's car are returned
NOVEMBER 2007
He's been sending off job application forms, but nothing has come in. Mortgage rates are rising and our mortgage payments are £2,400 per month, but we can hardly afford to eat.
We write to the bank saying we cannot afford to pay it this month, offering them £500 a month instead and telling them the house is up for sale. A year ago defaulting would have been unthinkable, but we have no choice.
DECEMBER 2007
The estate agent rings to say can we drop our asking price by £20,000? We refuse
APRIL 2008
The BAS writes to the bank on our behalf with the offer from a friend to pay £500 a month on the mortgage until the house is sold. But the bank says the only way to stop the repossession is to pay off all the arrears in a lump sum - a staggering £50,000 (the amount that's built up ever since we have not been able to pay the monthly payment in full), including fees and accrued interest.
We phone to discuss it, but the bank asks us to hand over the keys. We refuse because we still hope to sell.
JUNE 2008
Misery everywhere with talk of the credit crunch. No viewings, no offers. And no job offers for Paul, either. A friend has offered to pay for us to rent a nearby two-bedroom holiday cottage and to put our furniture into storage. It's so kind that I am close to tears again.
AUGUST 2008
We can't face the bailiffs. The weekend before the eviction, we post the keys back to the bank.
.
Clearing out my hand-made kitchen cupboards as we prepare to leave, I am suddenly overwhelmed by tears. We try to keep things in perspective - worse things could happen - but the truth is we have lost everything.
SEPTEMBER 3, 2008
'Our' house is officially repossessed. When we leave, I can't look back because I feel so sad and lonely.
OCTOBER 2008
Incredibly, the nightmare isn't over. The amount we now owe on our mortgage has leapt from £250,000 to £330,000 because of repossession fees.
Worse, for a quick sale HBOS has reduced the asking price to just £260,000.
Devastatingly, this would leave a shortfall of around £70,000 to pay back. We thought having our house repossessed was the end of it, but we were terribly wrong.
NOVEMBER 2008
We are reeling with anger. HBOS has accepted an offer of just £255,000 for Richmond House. We can't believe how uncaring it is to sell the house for such a ridiculous price.
The revelation that after all this we still owe £80,000 to the bank in the run-up to Christmas - and they can bankrupt me, too, to get it - sends us back into despair.
0
Comments
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I am considered "bullish" on housing here but that is the diary of a t1t!.
I Mewed before and used it as a cheap alternative to a personal loan and paid it back very quickly by overpaying.
But using HPI to fund a lifestye is stupid.
Thankfully the average person is not so stupid.(I think)
£80K reposession fees.:eek:0 -
tut tut.....
absolutely amazing.....
I really have trouble with this.....
There are consequences obvious to anyone with half a brain of this action.....
But still it happens.....
People still read the Daily Mail???0 -
I jsut read that article in the DM (I buy diff papers each day of the week to get a spread of opinion etc)...today was the day of The DM.
The story is more that he bought a dodgy business that didn't deliver the profits expected from it. He was able to buy the business for 700k using MEW and loans to raise 350k...the remaining 350k being paid from company profits.
The business T/O was 1.3 million and had 22 staff, so, to me, it seemed more a case of paying too much for the business. It doesn't say what the profits were.
There was a BTL thrown in for good measure, but it was the unprofitability of the business plus a drop in T/O caused, indirectly from floods, then the crunch that caused their repo.
This is similar to the Bernard Knopp (was that the name?) story.
People have been able to borrow huge sums for businesses that, before, wouldn't have been availble to them...myself included, some years back.0 -
I know it's not the full picture but this sort of borrowing/overspending is part of the reason for the credit crunch/recession. Yes, the banks/credit card companies were cynical and stupid to lend such money in the first place but people like this must accept some personal responsibility for getting all of us into this mess.0
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I confess...I bought it to read about Tana Ramsey.....JonnyBravo wrote: »
People still read the Daily Mail???0 -
what muppets.
the stupidest thing is not that despite being financially secure they decided to gamble everything on idiot "business" ventures, but the fact that if they had just sold their house when everything originally went wrong, rather than dragging it all on for 18 months, they would probably have been alright!0 -
We're throwing a party to celebrate the completion of our new £20,000 bespoke wooden kitchen and my father's 90th birthday. As I prepare food for 35 guests on our range cooker and sunshine floods in through the French doors, I can't help feeling proud.
I know plenty of people that did something similar to the above i.e. mew'd for a new kitchen/furniture/carpets/extension blah blah blah. I remember being invited to many house parties between 2002 - 2007 to celebrate a demonstration of false wealth.
Oddly enough I don't hear from those people anymore? Used to see them out and about on a Friday night and had to endure their tales of skiing holidays, weddings in the bahamas etc etc...but now they seem to 'stay in'!!
In fact one of them that spent a fortune on a new kitchen at the start of 2007 has now got his or whoever's house up for sale. It's been standing empty for nearly a year now?? Story is that they've moved 'somewhere else'? But I find it odd that they'd spend all that money on a kitchen just to let it stand empty? It's more like it's been repo'd. Shame really cos' I really enjoyed his demonstration of false wealth BBQs on a Saturday evening! We were all round there one evening to celebrate his purchase of a new Subaru Impreza...oddly enough he got rid of it after 6 months?0 -
The story is more that he bought a dodgy business that didn't deliver the profits expected from it. He was able to buy the business for 700k using MEW and loans to raise 350k...the remaining 350k being paid from company profits.
The business T/O was 1.3 million and had 22 staff, so, to me, it seemed more a case of paying too much for the business. It doesn't say what the profits were.
.
Exactly right. Man pays too much for business and / or can't run if profitably enough.
The business was bought it May 2006 and 3 months later it is seriously in trouble.
Moral of the story for others in the future;
Do better due diligence when buying a business.
Borrow more off the bank than you invest yourself
Don't give personal guarantees.US housing: it's not a bubble
Moneyweek, December 20050 -
I know plenty of people that did something similar to the above i.e. mew'd for a new kitchen/furniture/carpets/extension blah blah blah. I remember being invited to many house parties between 2002 - 2007 to celebrate a demonstration of false wealth.
Oddly enough I don't hear from those people anymore? Used to see them out and about on a Friday night and had to endure their tales of skiing holidays, weddings in the bahamas etc etc...but now they seem to 'stay in'!!
In fact one of them that spent a fortune on a new kitchen at the start of 2007 has now got his or whoever's house up for sale. It's been standing empty for nearly a year now?? Story is that they've moved 'somewhere else'? But I find it odd that they'd spend all that money on a kitchen just to let it stand empty? It's more like it's been repo'd. Shame really cos' I really enjoyed his demonstration of false wealth BBQs on a Saturday evening! We were all round there one evening to celebrate his purchase of a new Subaru Impreza...oddly enough he got rid of it after 6 months?
you should choose your friends better.
All my friends are mortgage holders and have never done any of the above.
0 -
Yeah well maybe they done something silly but I disagree. 11ish years ago the banks, the government and more importantly house buyers had the best possible chance of stopping the property price madness. But everyone got greedy and thats why this is happening now.
Property prices should have been frozen to raise only with earnings and inflation.... No house is worth 3+ times more than it was worth 11 years ago. We are all fools.0
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