help me please advise needed

redken

First sorry if this is in wrong place
My "wife" walked out on the kids (2) and me last July.
She has since declared herself bankrupt. She also included the mortgage on her bankruptcy.
Now i am real worried we will lose our home. It is already worth less than we payed when we took up the mortgage and now i am some 4k in arrears.
i have taken over the payments and have a arangment to pay back arreas over a 2 year peiod.
Can they have our home out rom under us. We never asked for this to happen to us, all this is her doing, not ours.
Please can anyone give me good sound advise.
thanks to all

Dan_1976

You need to talk to the insolvancy service, they are really helpful and not as scary as you think.

Secured debt are outside of bankruptcy but the property is seen as an asset and is in the Bankruptcy. If there is no equity they may not force sale or repo. If you can pay your mortgage you may keep it. I think they can wait for 3 years and if the price goes up they will be able to repo or force a sale.

You need to get better advice than you will get on here, no offence to myself or other posters. This is serious and the reciever for your wifes bankruptcy is the only person who can really tell you what will happen next.

Good luck

Rednoseranter

Ditto the above post - get professional free advice, possibley from the Citizens Advice or other similar free agency.

silvercar

Do take advice.

My take on it would be that you and your wife are still responsible for the mortgage as secured debts are not included in bankruptcy. The benificial interest in the property (ie anything outside the mortgage) that was your wifes share (generally 50%) is now owned by the Official Receiver. You could buy this from the OR, if there is negative equity it would cost you only £1 plus legal fees, so £2-300. If you want to do this then now would be the time to do it as the price will be cheapest.

Whether the lender repossesses depends on whether you build up arrears and isn't directly affected by the bankruptcy.

Dan_1976

Good point about the share thing Silvercar.

JayZed

redken, I agree, get professional advice from the CAB or similar.

As I see it, there are two separate issues here:
1) Your wife's bankruptcy
2) Your arrears on your mortgage

1) As silvercar says, your wife's share of any equity in the house would be included in her assets in relation to her bankruptcy, but if there is no equity it should be fairly straightforward for you to purchase her nominal share in the house from the official receiver at relatively little cost.

2) The fact that you are in arrears on your mortgage is something that could potentially put your home at risk, but if as you say you've come to an agreement with the lender to pay the arrears back over the next two years, you should be fine as long as you keep up with the agreed payment schedule.

Please note that I have no insolvency or debt expertise, so this is just my layman's take on things - don't treat it as gospel.

redken

Thank you all for replying, great help.
I did today get hold of her O/R, and ya right, they aint that spooky. Very helpful to he honest. My wife, it turns out has not been so honest...opps
i have expressed my interest in keeping our home and they have said they will be in touch and there does not seem to be any problem in this.
Just gotta sort my (soon to be ex) wifes lies out from the truth.
Again cheers and i will ge tyou a drink.....as if