omg northern rock agent just knocked the door.

MITZIW

didnt think they would actually send anyone but they have, he asked if i wanted to make an appointment to talk about arrears and i said no thankyou and shut the door, he rang bell again but i ignored it, just put a letter through door telling us to phone to arrange to meet him or they will start legal action. knew this would happen soon but arghhhh! i was worried he was going to wait outside for me because he was sat in his car for so long lol

Sunnylooloo

O no! I hope you are ok

MITZIW

i am ok thankyou, just horrible when its face to face andi was so scared hewas going to wait for me to go on the school run lol its all a nightmare at the moment as oh hasnt been paid for 3 wks (self employed but works for uncle) asthey are waiting for nhs to pay for jobs done. he is looking for another job.its just everything at once!

Sunnylooloo

O No it is so worrying. Hope OH gets some work soon too.

I'm imagining you putting on a hat and dark glasses and sneaking out the back to go on the school run in case he is still there.

Daybreak

how horrible, I'd have felt awful knowing he was sitting outside in the car just waiting for me to leave the house... You answered his question, and he delivered his letter, its just pure intimidation to keep hanging around outside, is that allowed??

immoral_angeluk

If he's made your frightened and put extra pressure on you, then sadly, he's done his job. Their sole purpose is to pressure the customer into paying I'm afraid. Next time don't answer the door.
Or there is actually a letter knocking around somewhere where you can revoke their right to call at your home under common law. Will see if I can dig it out but otherwise I'm sure someone else will know what I'm on about.

immoral_angeluk

Here you go check out this thread.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=26867957&postcount=15

MITZIW

lol at disguise! he left after a little while so it wasn't needed.

thanks for the letters, i dont think i'll need itbecause the next thing i will get from them is a court date i think then i need to go and ask for the 28 days or what ever it is you do!

hunts42

Try not to worry too much, i had the same thing... They (Northern Rock) sent a guy to the house, they'd advised us that they were going to and so, eventually, he turned up. By the time he called at the house we'd already moved out and had moved into private rental, we eventually gave NR the house back as the repayments were nigh on impossible after my own bankruptcy.

Anyhoo... the man who called on us left a letter asking us to get in touch, we did as he requested simply because we wanted to prove a point, we had no money! We arranged to meet him at a neutral venue, a local shopping centre, and we all had a brew while we discussed things.

He explained that he was employed by NR to try to reach resolution, to compile a means test and to generally discuss the situation with us. He didn't mind that we wouldn't provide our new address or telephone numbers (we'd had enough of the daily phone calls from inept 17yr olds) and was happy to accept mobile numbers instead.

He was a lovely man, very sympathetic, not at all scary or patronising, we spoke for maybe 40 minutes and we outlined our plan to him. He told us that he'd need to compile a report based on what we'd said and advised us that he'd make sure NR called off the dogs. True to his word, they've never once called us and waited for us to get in touch with them, when we did we provided a forwarding address and all has been good ever since, the legal process continued and they took possession of our old house in due course.

Don't be worried! These people are well intentioned, they're not out to scare you or make you feel bad. Our guy was a former bank manager who now worked part time for the company NR employed. He knew what we were going through and didn't once try to muscle us or anything remotely like that. My advice, bite the bullet, be truthful if you speak to them and listen to what they have to say, it may help, it may not, but it'll prevent additional charges being added to your account if nothing else.

MITZIW

thanks for sharing your story, we aresaving to rent at the moment as our mortgage payments are too high aswell im just worried about when we have to leave and if we have found somewhere by then. dont want to speak to anyone as we want them to reposess but as late as possible lol so cant tell them what we are doing.x

dollparts

I had a field agent visit me at home too, although he was polite enough to put a card through the letterbox asking me to call him. This was on a Sunday which I thought was weird so I asked him why he hand delivered on a Sunday and he told me that by law/rule they are not allowed to contact you on a weekend.

I made an arrangement for him to come over and tbh he was quite pleasant. He said he was only interested in the back story-how we came to be in arrears and if there was any chance we would be able to catch up etc etc. By the very fact he was sitting in my new rented home as opposed to the mortagaged one answered his questions thourougly.

He did ask me lots of questions and although it is all a bit of a blur now as I was pretty stressed at the time I do remember asking him why he needed to know answers to particular questions.....I think one of the ones that stands out was about potentially asking family members to help with arrears. He was ok when I questioned him and said it was just the nature of NR to garner as much info as poss.

He was friendly and polite and even wished me luck-I had given him my sorry story and tbh it does generally invoke 'oh no' and 'well you are doing what's best' etc etc but I do feel he was genuine enough and it felt like therapy to be able to spell the story out to a stranger.

One thing to remember is the field agent does not work for NR-they are appointed to investigate on their behalf.

Personally I would say to anyone that if you are planning to go with repo or vol repo then you would be doing yourself a favour if you talk to them. I noticed that things really started to gather pace once he had reported back to NR and hopefully my repo will be finalised in the next few weeks-another door closed.

Once they have sent the agent round they will accept whatever he tells them, though it will not stop the mid evening calls from some bored CSA asking what you plan to do to get up to date with your payments-They are slow on the uptake in more ways than one!