Advice needed please --court date for possession claim

Ladynoluck

My husband and I took a secured loan out with First Plus that had PPI with it. We cancelled PPI and presently claim for PPI is with the Ombudsman. The adjudicator has found in our favour, however it has been with the ombudsman for a week now for final decision.

Our claim was fast tracked because we have fallen into arrears with our loan. We now have a court date in three weeks for possession of our property. If we get the payment from the Ombudsman we can clear our arrears.

I am terrified that we are going to lose our home and time is short. If we are able to clear the outstanding arrears do we still have to go to court? and if we clear the arrears can they still take our home away, as the letter from the court says First Plus wants possession of the premises, or the total amount outstanding under the mortgage. We borrowed 55,000 which included PPI, and they want 71,000.

I would be grateful if someone could give us some advice.

We would not be in this mess if we had not had the PPI in the first plasce and First Plus had played fair with the interest rate.

Many thankss

Cannon_Fodder

Far too complex and involved to rely on snippets of the situation on an internet forum.

You should seek legal advice. Immediately.

Purely as a layman, with half the story, even if you win your claim and recover and pay back the arrears, I wouldn't miss the court date - if only to brandish the documentation at the judge, so FP don't get the property "by default" in the absence of any up to date information.

If you are not there, any number of untruths could be stated, which without rebuttal could be accepted at face value.

I don't think Judges like to let homes be repossessed until all options are exhausted. However, if it appears that the process has been followed, he might think "if you don't care enough to turn up, why should I go out of my way to protect your interests"...

SouthCoast

If you are facing repossession or eviction, make sure you attend your court hearing to increase your chances of keeping your home. If you haven’t received any advice before the hearing, find out how to get free legal representation in court on the day.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/Keepingyourhomeevictionsandhomelessness/Mortgagesandrepossessions/DG_10026228

Mrs_Bumble

Seek legal advice from Shelter immediately

http://england.shelter.org.uk/

emvic

hi
I know exactley how you are feeling we have a hearing date 29th sept.we fell behind on mortgage payment due to when my husband lost his job, now he has a job and we trying our best to get up to date with mortgage payment and the arrears, but we got ppwk throu last week from court, ppwk says poccession of property down to arrears, but my mortgage co says they are going for suspended order so hopefully this is true
but like you totally worrying,,, have you tried community legal advise their no 0845 3.454345.
hope everything goes okay x

Mrs_Bumble

This is my response to Emvic thread yesterday in relation to suspended order which may or may not be helpful:
It sounds from what you have said above that although you have stayed in contact from your point of view with GE that there hasn't really been any productive arrangement agreed or maintained. As this issue has gone on since your husband unfortunately lost his job in January the problem has remained without a firm agreement in place and as such there are no doubt arrears and charges mounting on your mortgage balance.

Now from what you say above it doesn't sound like GE have been particuarly forward in their advice to you in which is the best way forward, for instance in my opinion in January they should have sat you down and filled out a full budget planner to see what your outgoings and income were and agreed a reduced payment for a couple of months, at the end of this point it to be reviewed with the hope that your husband would have found work or the fact that after 13 weeks on JSA you can apply for income support mortgage interest relief payments - did you claim this?

In July when they asked you to set up an arrangement (unbelievable it took this long) did they go through a full budget planner with you?

I don't understand the part about the weekly pay and an arrangement because if you could afford the monthly arrangement I don't see why you couldn't either set the money aside each week or pay it to them each week.

I don't understand if you are in arrears and GE want the money and if it is easier for you to send money weekly why you can't and whilst I accept that they won't want to set up a direct debit for a weekly payment there shouldn't be anything stopping you setting up a standing order payment.

Now from what you say above although you consider that you have kept in touch with GE there has been no formal arrangement in place for the term of the arrears, which as I said is not really your fault but now obviously they have decided to formalise the arrangement and ask for a suspended court order to back up an agreed arrangement. Now they may want XYZ from you as an arrangement but if you can't afford it then a court won't agree it, the court essentially will side with you the client and will assess what you can genuinely afford as they won't want an agreement to be set up under order for it to be just broken. If they are looking for a suspended order based on the arrears they will get it, this will only become a full possession order if the said suspended order is not maintained and they would have to go back to court for this to happen.

Now I am assuming that as you were with GE that there have been credit history issues in the past/present and that you have probably got other unsecured or secured debts, it is absolutely essential that these debts are now prioritised and dealt with in order of importance i.e secured debts first, council tax, utilities, then unsecured debts following up behind. If you are still using credit then this must be addressed and stopped.

A useful leaflet is this one

http://www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk...ge_cantpay.pdf
Further help can be found
http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_ad..._relationships

for other debt issues you can get help from CCCS online and National Debtline, they have very useful budget planners etc. Don't wait until 10 September.

Also would be worth looking at the debt free wannabe board for help with unsecured debt etc.

It is very, very important that you put together a very comprehensive budget planner detailing literally everything that you have outgoing, other debt etc and that all the debt issues are dealt with, including payment plans etc. As no point in putting the mortgage on track and other things sliding, or robbing peter to pay paul etc. The whole picture needs to be looked at.

Mrs_Bumble

Ladynoluck - you say in your OP that if it wasn't for the PPI that you wouldn't have gone into arrears but is there anything else that contributed to the arrears at the time?

Is the secured loan with First Plus the only borrowing secured on the house?

If you only borrowed £55K including the PPI how has the debt increased to £71K?

If you have cancelled the PPI haven't the monthly payments gone down?

What are the actual arrears owed to First Plus?