My BR Experiance

money_fool

Hi David F
I sent the valuation to the OR's office along with the life policy a few days after BR. They send you a standard letter requesting any documentation and explaining that they now 'own' ou BI. It took a couple of further weeks for them to contact me re the life policy and to get it back. They said the house valuation had to go to the RTLU to be sorted out. My file was sent to them after about 2 months. To be honest I did not chase the RTLU on this. After about 6 months (8 mnths from BR) I called the RTLU to find out what was happening. This is when I found out they had lost the original valuation. So I sent them another one and within two weeks I had teh letter saying I could buy back teh BI - which I did. It took another 4 to 6 weeks to get the documentation from the ORs solicitors relating to the transfer.I guess it may have been quicker if I had chased it earler.

money_fool

Hi out of cash
I was advised that the OR cannot really dispute an official red book valuation. Remember this showed the house was in NE. If you can spare the £150 I would really recommend getting one and telling the Surveyor why you want one.

David_F

Hi MOney_fool,

Thank you for your help in clarifying how you dealt with the BI issue, it was a great help.

I went BR on 3rd March 2010 and had already had a Surveyor's valuation done prior to BR showing a £6k negative equity. I sent the OR this valuation as part of the initial info pack they requested but as yet I have not heard anything back.

I plan to write to the OR in about 6 weeks from going BR to officially request to buy the BI. I did mention my interest in this matter during the OR interview but was advised by the OR that they could not deal with the BI until after about 4 weeks of me being BR.

Hopefully my house process will run as smoothly as yours.

Thank you again for the time and effort it must have taken to write your BR journey, I'm sure it will help many people with their own.

All the best,

David F

money_fool

David F
The OR does send a formal letter re the BI to everyone listed as having an interest in the property (my OH received on as well). This was about 6 weeks after the BR date.

yellowmonkey

Great post MF and thank you for sharing the whole package. It was nice when I was thinking about it last year to read similar posts and try to fathom out the whole thing.

Posts like these do that and help a lot of people :T

mscfsb

Thanks for the post MF its good to hear of other peoples experiences especially when things turn out as well as yours. Well done & good luck for the future. :T :beer:

RichDefoe

Great post MF. This is something I have been debating with myself to go ahead with and reading what others have been through does increase my confidence for the future.

Just a quick question, how long from the BR hearing did it take for your bank accounts to be frozen? Were they unfrozen at all and when did you open the Co-Op account?

money_fool

RichDefoe
I opened up a coop current account with my OH a couple of months prior to the BR. I then called them after BR and explained that I guessed I needed a cashminder account. This was all set up, in joint names, without an issue. After a couple of months they said they had to remove my name from the current account - it is still active in just my wifes name. The handy thing is, if I login using her details I get to see both accounts. So we use the current account for all our DDs and the cashminder for everything else. Remember - transfers between coop account happen immediatly. Very hand at the end of the month if you need to move the remaining £'s to get hold of them.

The OR asks you about bank accounts during the interview and immediatly writes to them. In our case he told them that he has no interest in them, so they were never frozen (but I was worried about this!). The only issue I had was with a TSB busienss account I had. The OR sent them the same letter but they decided to close it in any case. Not a big issue as I had taken all the money out

Amiga

Thanks for this Moneyfool.

Glad to see you came out the otherside, and best of luck for the future