Govt Mortgage to Rent Scheme/Will it save my house?

Angiepange

Hi CyberHelen

Have a look at this link which covers some of the criteria you need to meet to apply for MRS.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/BuyingAndSellingYourHome/Mortgagesandrepossessions/DG_174005

Also have you thought about ringing Shelter, they can advise you on Mortgage Rescue too, link here. And you can ring their homeowners helpline on 0300 3300 515 for an initial assessment.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/repossession/mortgage_arrears/government_mortgage_rescue_scheme

Failing that try ringing your local council housing department and ask them what their procedure is for referral. For me I had to go through the CAB who first assessed my suitability then referred me to the council.

HTH Angie x

notfunnymoney

CyberHelen wrote: »

Wish I'd found this site earlier. Glad it has worked for someone.

I will have to keep a track of it - as I am thinking about starting this process. I have just had my Mortgage Interest payments reduced, which means that what i have to pay on my mortgage has gone up from £183 to £386 a month. Which on my benefits of £625 is too much. I'm already down to £12 a year for Shoes and Clothes.

I went to the council - who referred me to the CAB; but the CAB lady i saw was so not helpful at all. She just looked down the information and told me it was no good for me - then proceeded to try and work out how to negotiate with the mortgage company - but i already have help with that bit (and told the lady who assessed my need for appointment, and her at the beginning of the meeting) - I just needed the info on the MRS.

I am in a 2 bed flat - which i have been in since 2000 - i became unwell 4 years ago. And have been on benefits ever since.

A studio flat - privately rented in my area is £550 and my mortgage only £625 (C&I) I have already been reduced to interest only, taking it to about £586 - so i can't afford to privately rent either, because of my income. I am really struggling with the potential of loosing my house, and not quite sure where to go next - The thought of going back to the CAB is frightening, as i find it stressful just going in and attempting to deal with issues. So far I have been to my CAB 6 times in 4 years, and each time they haven't been able to help me, so i guess i'm a bit despondent now. Prior to these 2 visits it was help with debts, and they told me i'd come in too early to deal with them. I had to wait until i was getting letters demanding money before they could help me.

I have mental health problems, and I cannot deal with things easily, so each time getting into the CAB has been a struggle. Another charity is now helping me with my debt problems, but they don't deal with MRS - I have to find out about that on my own, and whether to persue it or not.

Any advice anyone has will be really fab.

Hi CyberHelen, we too had to go thru CAB who have to assess your financial position and refer you to your LA if they think you're eligible for mrs. I think referral can be made directly from your lender too but not sure that many actually do this.... do you have someone who could go with you - be your advocate or something like that? Must be horrible for you if you're feeling vulnerable and had such bad experiences in the past - like they're making you feel like a pest??!! I have learnt thru our financial difficulty that sometimes you almost have to make yourself 'worse off' before anyone will help you cos actually if you seek advice as a PREVENTATIVE measure then you're not seen as worthy enough for help!!! Mad!! I ended up researching the mrs so much that by the time I went to my LA/CAB I actually knew more than them, ha!!!!

I have to say that I also find all these trips/phonecalls to the LA and CAB very stressfull and draining too... it's seeming never ending at the moment but I have been very lucky with my contacts there - CAB woman is especially lovely and will be getting a big bunch of flowers if this all EVENTUALLY goes thru - need to keep chasing LA tho, esp now the sp.review has given them the go ahead - no excuses now!!!

I hope you can you can get the ball rolling soon hun - I found this website invaluable so hope you can get knowledge and strength from here too!!

H x

Angiepange

Well its been nearly 2 weeks now since our mortgage rescue completed and its all been quiet.

I have received the signed tenancy agreement from our Housing Association and am just waiting for them to get in contact. We were told we would get a home visit from a neighbourhood officer to discuss what happens next, rent payment etc but as yet havent heard anything.

We got a call the other day from the Central Heating people and they are scheduled to come in next Mon/Tues to replace our ancient boiler and leaking water tank!! Still havent heard from the other contractors about all the building work that will be done so I am hoping they will be in touch soon. There's alot of work to be done (argh... mess/dust ) so I really want that out the way asap.

As for how I feel now, well relief probably the main emotion, at least I know we can remain in 'our' home for the forseeable future. And gratitude the mortgage rescue scheme is in place and has stopped us being repossessed. Also regret that its all come to this but I will get over that in time I think. Now its just a case of looking forward to the future and working hard to improve 'our lot'. I am hoping to gain employment as soon as possible, to take the pressure off my hard working hubby and to help the family finances get back on track since the BR.

Thinking of anyone else going through mortgage rescue and hope they are hanging in there. All the best Angie x

notfunnymoney

Hi Angie, must feel pretty strange right now - like your whole life has been about mrs for so long and now.....nothing....but NORMAL life to live.....oh how I long for that too!!! Having a 4 and 2yr old, 'normal life' is hectic enough without any spare second I have being taken up by phonecalls, letters, working out calculations, appts with important people etc..... I just want to have the energy to deal with just the issues of normal day to day life....

I sent a letter to our council last week (and a copy to CAB and Lenders) basically saying that altho I was aware the mrs would take some time, I'm a little disappointed that the council have had our app for 3mths and it hasn't progressed AT ALL!!! I said that I was guessing this was due to the impending Spending Review but now that's all been aired with a further £200m to mrs that should give them the green light to start making some progress on our app..... we'll see what happens from that!!! In the mean time we've had a letter from Bailiffs regarding our unpaid council tax - I tried disputing that we needed to pay it but to no avail so need to sort that one out now.... we went from paying £9pm to them requesting £181pm - and this is all cos I got a little part-time job where I earnt approx £170pm - I got it so we could afford to pay for electricity/gas and other ESSENTIALS but no, they just wanted to snatch it back off us and it really does leave you wondering if there's any point in me trying to improve our lives?! I'd have been better off not working and getting benefits - isn't that just what the Gov DON'T want??!!!

Ohhhh....sorry, just on a bit of a downer today with it all.... hopefully now the sp.rev is out the way and I've written my letter it MIGHT bring us some good news soon!!!

H x

Angiepange

Hi H,

Sorry to hear you are on a downer hun, its all so frustrating the waiting and not knowing isnt it? Lets hope you get a response to your letter soon. Did you get anyones email address, I mostly communicated with them all that way and it did help. I know what you mean about the council, my council sat on the application for ages and even then lost photocopied documents so had to go through that rigmarole again!! Hopefully as soon as you get passed onto the Housing Association things should really pick up speed for you.

I know full well what you mean about working and benefits, all you want to do is support your family and get by but it feels like your banging your head against a brick wall! O hun you will get through this, if you ever feel like a chat just let me know, you know where to find me.

And as for feeling strange, you are right! My whole life became about getting through mrs and it is slowly sinking in now that we are here to stay, still up and down days but it has made a huge difference to my outlook. Thanks for thinking of me and keep in touch.

Angie x

notfunnymoney

Ahhh thanks Angie - can't tell you how nice it feels to have found support from someone who's actually been thru this - most people we know haven't even heard of it let alone gone thru it and all that it entails!!! Feel sorry for you that you had nobody to help you in those early days when you were struggling to make sense of it all but at least your experiences aren't in vain cos not only have you now faught to successfully complete a mrs - but you're now helping us lot on here too!!!

I just don't get why it should take this long with the council - there seems to be no valid reason and all this time we're losing more money (house prices going down too!!) and if the worst came to the worst they're the ones that would have to re-house us anyway so why not just sort this out and keep another desperate family at bay - as well as keep the family sane, ha!!

So did things pick up for you a bit quicker once it had gone to the RSL? Ours will be Thames Valley Housing who have an article on their website about their first mrs completion - and they rabble on about being dedicated to keeping people in their homes etc so HOPEFULLY that might mean things will pick up a bit once it's there.... if it gets there?! I just wish there was one point in this long and laborious process where we would DEFINITELY know we were def accepted and it is all def gonna go thru - if they told me that but said it would be another 6mths til completion I could cope with that - but as you said, it's all the waiting but with no definite guarantee at the end of it all...

Know what you mean about a diff outlook on things cos I've found that I'm almost a lot less stressed about other 'little' things now - ie the enormity of all this makes everything else seem really not as bad - and I really have found that I'm appreciating things like health and happiness in our little family - cos in my eyes if you haven't got that then that would be a lot more depressing than financial worries etc....Like I said before, have me down days but then think of worse things and it gives me the strength to pick back up and carry on until the next drama, ha ha!!!

Anyways I'm waffling now but thanks for all your support and chat again soon - hopefully with some GOOD news resulting from my letter!! And I'm also gonna try to get email addresses for the council too cos like you said, a lot easier than phone - also got everything said in writing and I can concentrate on what I want to say and not have my kidlings vying for my attention in the background, ha!!

H x

Angiepange

Hi H,

I am so pleased you have found some help from this thread, and I am definitely here for support anytime

I agree with you about the council delay. Our application sat with our council for nearly 3 months before it got dealt with! We had the initial interview beginning of Dec 2009 but it wasnt until end of Feb 2010 that they had finally passed us onto the RSL. I can only imagine in our case that actual repossessions taking place were dealt with as priority and we were left to stew because we were not actually being evicted. I also had the problem of the council losing documents that had been faxed to them by the bank and even copies of documents we had given them :cool: so that delayed things further. Also coupled with the fact that with only one mrs officer at the council dealing with mortgage rescue and having other duties on top, its no wonder it all proceeded so slowly.

But once it did get to the RSL, things definitely started to happen quicker. Initially we had delay because the RSL needed the 15 day letter threatening legal action (this letter states that the lender has exhausted all other options and the next stage is to take legal action). That letter is the trigger for the RSL to process your application. Once that got sorted (took a month and a half to get that from our bank!!) the RSL got us booked in for an interview and also booked up the survey and valuation.

Less than a month after that we received the Formal Offer Notice. I would say H, that once you have this offer then you are pretty much guaranteed it will go through to completion. All the further delay and hassle for us involved signing the shortfall sale form and accepting liability. Thats what dragged it all out for us for a further 4 months. If we hadnt had that to contend with I would imagine from start to finish once the RSL was involved would have been 3 months tops. So you have to hang in there and try and stay strong, its all you can do unfortunately.

Its so nice to hear you talk about your appreciation of health and happiness and your family. You are so right of course, its all too easy to get consumed by money worries and frustrations over the delays with mrs etc, but just keep telling yourself that you are doing all you can for your family and you will get through it.

Please let us know when they get back to you re the letter you sent, I am wishing for good news for you and sending you all my love and support

Angie x

notfunnymoney

Hi Angie, thanks for getting back to me again!! At the time we applied to our LA we were the first mrs applicants in our borough!! Think it's cos we live in an area where property prices are stupidly high - we only just fell into the mrs bracket allowed for our area and that's only cos we're in a 2bed maisonette and not a house - at the time we moved here we had a lot more money and nearly went for a 3bed house but decided not to stretch ourselves - and thank god we didn't!! Fate's a funny thing, eh?!!

At the time we app'd there were comments coming back from the LA that cos we didn't have a repo court date they couldn't do anything until we did but in my usual way I researched this and found out that you qualify if you're at threat of repo and this includes the 15day letter you say about - which we'd just had at the time - then my son scribbled all over it with black marker pen!!! Luckily bank sent thru a copy pretty quickly but the funny thing was that the CAB had to include the original in the app cos it showed the correct date on it - so we have my sons artwork on our files, ha!!! So that one is def covered - in more ways than one!! The other thing we won't have that you did is the neg eq stuff cos we're not in NE - well at the moment we're not but house prices are going downwards and knowing our luck we're gonna end up getting a lot less than our place was first valued at at the beginning of the process!! But we do have a fair amount of eq which is another reason for doing mrs cos it means we'll be able to pay off all our debts too so it'll all help to decrease our monthly outgoings.....SO much is hanging on this!!!

I'm certainly nowhere near to getting excited but I have to say what you say about the RSL bit of the process only taking around 3mths is very encouraging.... I've kinda got to that point now where the initial excitement of mrs (being a poss end to all our woes!) has massively worn off and I'm so detached from it ever happening that to think that maybe - JUST MAYBE - there may only be another 3-4mths left of it all once the council (who I don't see have anymore reason not to crack on now!) make the app is quite a bizarre feeling cos I'm very pesamistic (sp?!) about it all so much that I've got into my head it'll be months and months and months!!! Last time I actually manged to speak to the LA about a couple of mths ago they said it could take up to 8mths and we've done 2 of that so I was thinking 6mths but then added on another 3mths in my head for sh*tty delays and red tape!!!

Yeah altho it's hard some days, we really do have to appreciate what we HAVE got in life and whenever I hear some really sad news or the plight of others, you do have to think - well, what would I rather? I'm seeing our lovely lady at the CAB tomorrow - she also got a copy of our letter to LA so will be interested to see what she says about it - and the office is right next door to the LA so you never know, she might pop round with me again - we've done that before and it's so nice to have a good, knowledgable support with you when you're facing all these council people and regulations!! I will let you know what happens and when I hear any further news from the LA!!!

Thanks again sooooo much for all your knowledgable and friendly advice Angie - this is really helping me I can tell ya!!!

H x

notfunnymoney

Little update!!! LA phoned me this afternoon - lady was actually really nice so I'm glad I was TOO stroppy in my letter to them, ha!! Basically they've confirmed that we def meet all the criteria and that their paperwork is almost complete - they're coming round next Wed to do a Home Visit - this is basically so they can assertain if there are any glaringly obvious faults with the property (which there aren't!) before they pass the app onto RSL and they fork out £600+ for a structual surveyor to come round. She will also bring round all the paperwork for us to sign off and then it'll be passed onto the RSL shortly after - she did say by end of next week but I'm not holding my breath - but it'll be sooner than I originally thought tho so that's good!! She also added that she's "been dealing with the person at the RSL for years so knows them well which will all help" - so fingers crossed that'll speed things up a little!!

I'm so glad I wrote that letter cos this time last week (when I typed it out!!) I had no idea where we were at but at least we have a bit more idea now.... it's not a sigh of relief yet but it's a bit of good news out the gloom and gives you a bit of strength to get thru the next bit, eh?!! It's started to feel a bit real again cos as I said before, I've spent so many weeks almost forgetting about it thinking it'll be so long there's no point but it's made me feel a bit more positive now that maybe this might just start to actually be properly rolling now and there is a diddy shining light at this very long tunnel!!

Will keep you updated!

H x

Angiepange

:j:j:j

Wow great news H

Thats sounding really positive now, I am so pleased for you.

I definitely think your letter helped, got your case noticed by the sounds of it woohoo x