Bankrupty am i eligable for council house.

susanfairley

Hi there,here is my story, my partner and i are in debt about £15000. we are currently having to sell our house through unemployment. We have a buyer but the problem is we have a mortgage shortfall of about £9000. The bank want us to sign the dreaded DEED OF ACKNOWLEGEMENT, this applies to both sale and repossession. We have been advised by National Debtline not to sign this as we are going to apply for bankruptcy and this form will affect our chances. We already have our name on the coucil list, they have told us that if we handed the keys to our home back they wouldn't have to house us..the same applies to us deciding to rent privately.. We want to get out of this property asap due to its leaking kitchen roof and dangerous leaning chimney !!. If we took our house off the market and made ourselves bankrupt before selling the house, thus avoiding signing for anything would the council still have an obligation to house us, as our home will be sold in the bankruptcy ?? we have explored all options and this is our last hope... repossesion could take a while, time we dont have living in a house thats not really fit to live in... plus the bank are refusing to sell if we dont sign the deed...... (

yours hopefully...

Mrs Susan Fairley :mad: x x x x

skylight

Technically - no. The council could argue that you have made yourself intentionally homeless by not paying the mortgage/allowing repossession etc, but this one is a grey area and Shelter would be able to help you better.

That aside, what are your realistic chances of actually getting a council or housing association place in your area? Really. My area, for example, the council have 6000 homes. And 6500 on the waiting list, so the chance of getting anything here is almost zero (says she who has 5 kids in a 2-bed council house and has already been waiting almost 4 years). They are building 1570-odd new flats, most of which will be HA, but as you can see from the figures they are not going to touch the sides.

And its not just my area. Lots and lots have serious problems with social housing, and us single mums who churn out kids Daily Mail style, don't actually get the automatic upgrade! The problem I feel that this is going to bring on, is that council and HA homes will eventually just house the bad and the ugly as the good will either run a mile or won't know how to play the system.

So. Off my soap box!! But how is the housing in your area? Could you not privately rent before BR and your credit file is shot - at least you will get a choice of areas. LHA can help pay the rent etc.


As to the deed of acknowledgement, signing it BEFORE BR is not serious. It simply agrees that you owe the money as a shortfall. Once BR it will go into your BR pot. DO NOT EVER, EVER sign one AFTER BR, as then its a new debt and cannot go into the BR pot.

Talk to SHELTER - they will be able to give you much better advice and far more local information.

susanfairley

Yes... i can see your point.. we drove around the area we wanted to live and found that hardly any houses were emtpy, and most council houses had been bought..... so ive just had another idea.. we may have to sack the council idea as i have 4 children and 2 cats, and don't want the council to put us in a b&b...
We have now thought a new plan..... contact housing benefit tell them to stop paying as we are no longer paying mortgage.... move out our stuff to a privately rented house.... then post the keys back to the bank and declare ourselves bankrupt... then we havent signed a thing... x x

skylight

You may as well go for that option. But I would still recommend talking to Shelter first; they may have a different brainwave.

Is you property in negative equity? Lots of arrears on it? Afford the mortgage (even with the income support help that I assume you are getting from your previous post) Going BR is not a foregone conclusion in losing the house. If you can keep up the repayments and its in negative equity (or little equity), you can normally keep the house.

susanfairley

We dont actually want the house.... it needs a lot of work doing to it... we were having a council funded grant this year.... work was being started oct/nov we had a builder and everything... THEN THE COUNCIL PULLED THE PLUG..... new govt !!! cutbacks.... we just want to walk away.... take our stuff and go.... no equity and 3 months arrears.... we hate it here.. have otherr debts too... not scared of bankruptcy.. have had so much stress and illness now.... we want to start a fresh !! we deserve a break.. ) x xxx

shadow4

Hiya we were in a similar situation as yourself and we went to the CAB who worked out all our income and expenditure which showed even if we had no other debts we could still not afford to pay the mortgage. They had a specialist who dealt with housing issues ect and he done a letter for me to give to the council stating that it was impossible for us to afford our mortgage. I had registered with the council and being given a low priority but made an appointment with their homeless section. When I went to see them I took the letter from the CAB, proof of income/expenditure and letters from our mortgage company saying we were in arrears and they were seeking repossession. Our house was also in a bad state of repair and for 3 months our boiler had broke and we couldnt afford to fix it so we had no hot water or heating. I argued that we were unable to privately rent due to our bad credit history, rents being too high and not having any money for a deposit thankfully they agreed to help me and gave us a council house so dont give up. You should also try other social landlords in your area like home housing or enterprise 5 as they wont ask for a deposit and at least you will have a long term home. good luck X

Nicky889

I have just read your thread and thought I would let you know what we were told x
We owned our own house and were told we were in negative equity along with the fact we had got ourselves in debt with credit card companies as well due to my partner losing his job for a while. Were advised we couldnt do anything with the house until we went bancrupt. Once this happened we moved out of the property into private rented accomodation (new the council would throw us in some 1 bed horrid place somewhere with 2 kids) and then relinquished all responsability for our previous home.We had managed to keep up our payments on everything for a long while but when putting pen to paper realised we would go under if we didnt do something so after seeking legal advise from CAB we went bankrupt voluntarily.We were told to STOP paying all our debts including the mortgage once we had made the decision to go bankrupt which gave us a month of payments to put to the cost of a deposit on renting a new house (along with a little bit of help from family). Along came the date court (amazingly scary - but a sigh of relief) and we moved out straight after. Private renting can be quick if you find a house straight away. Once we had gone bancrupt the courts advised me to contact the mortgage company to arrange collection of the keys. They tried to send me one of those forms to sign of which I wasnt happy to sign! Although my official receiver said it wouldnt make any difference if I did, so I wrote to them relinquishing all responsibility for the property along with my keys!! Never heard anything after, now it sold and new people in it!!
My advise GO BANCRUPT FIRST, then you can do what you want with the house. And yes Sky light is right, we were given the option to keep the house but because it would have only cost us more debt on repairs we didnt want it!!And that was fine! AND DONT EVER AKNOWLEDGE ANY DEBT AFTER THE BANCRUPTCY!! In fact dont even speak to them YOU DONT HAVE TO, IT Becomes the job of your receivers! AND PRIOR TO THE BANCRUPTCY, dont ever tell them you are about to go bancrupt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They will slap you with a CCJ straight away! (were told this by CAB) x
Hope matbe some of this helps x

susanfairley wrote: »

Hi there,here is my story, my partner and i are in debt about £15000. we are currently having to sell our house through unemployment. We have a buyer but the problem is we have a mortgage shortfall of about £9000. The bank want us to sign the dreaded DEED OF ACKNOWLEGEMENT, this applies to both sale and repossession. We have been advised by National Debtline not to sign this as we are going to apply for bankruptcy and this form will affect our chances. We already have our name on the coucil list, they have told us that if we handed the keys to our home back they wouldn't have to house us..the same applies to us deciding to rent privately.. We want to get out of this property asap due to its leaking kitchen roof and dangerous leaning chimney !!. If we took our house off the market and made ourselves bankrupt before selling the house, thus avoiding signing for anything would the council still have an obligation to house us, as our home will be sold in the bankruptcy ?? we have explored all options and this is our last hope... repossesion could take a while, time we dont have living in a house thats not really fit to live in... plus the bank are refusing to sell if we dont sign the deed...... (

yours hopefully...

Mrs Susan Fairley :mad: x x x x

Miche*

If youwant to move out then move out. The bank will eventually reposess the house even without the deed of acknowledgement being signed.. they have to, it's what happens. Reposession can take a long time but that doesn't mean you have to live there in the meantime. Our house was empty for a long time while repo was being sorted.

Hope to have helped somewhat.. be aware that mortgage lenders may try to back you into a corner to get you to sign the DoA- mine certainly did (they told me barefaced lies)