Another potential mortgage rescue failure.........

sillygirl73

A brief summary of situation. Lost job in May (after being on maternity leave), and immediately our huge debt became completely unmanageable. Went straight to CAB who have been fab, now paying all creditors £1 per month and have a good 6 months breathing space.........have not had any phone calls for a month!!!!
We have been struggling to pay our mortgage, and had recieved help from family whilst I was on mat leave, and on the advice of CAB have been paying 50% of mortgage for the last 3 months, so are technically 1.5 months in arrears.
Back in June, we were made aware of MR and that we were very good candidates as had 1 year old baby, house only just in neg equity etc. So submitted application at the end of June. We have heard nothing since then other than an initial meeting with housing team at council, and after numerous phone calls have found out that the person at coucil dealing with MR has been off sick for the last 2 months...... so nothing has been done.
Finally today spoke to the person who has taken over and they have told us that because we are only 1.5 months in arrears we do not qualify..........:mad::mad:, we need to be 3 months in arrears. I wanted to stop paying mortgage 4 months ago (and save up for rental deposit etc in case MR fell through) but was advised by CAB not to do that. If we had done that we would have met the criteria. Have spoken to lender today who basically told me that we should have stopped paying mortgage in June...........
At the end of this month, any MR applications not processed (ours ) will not complete, as council is halting the service. It may be reinstated next year, by which stage we will probably have been repossessed.:(:(
Am so cross that we were misadvised, particularly as our contact at CAB is also the person who deals with MR at the council. Am also cross that despite my frequent phone calls over the last few months, nobody told me what was going on.
So now, have no money saved for renting,( would have had over £1200) and no real chance of a MR.........don't know what to do.........

Angiepange

Oh god, im so completely gutted for you. I really am. Your experience is just shocking, the lack of assistance, wrong info given to you etc. Im just so angry. And the fact your council is stopping it now, what a shambles. I am so sorry, I want to post with a solution/help for you but I am at a loss as to what you can do now.

Would you consider your MP? What about emailing Head of Communities and Local Govt? Your application has been in for 3 months, its not your fault someone was off sick or that you followed the advice of CAB which has turned out to be wrong!

Angiepange

Sent you an email hun with my thoughts.

Is there anyone looking in that can help here????

poppy10_2

sillygirl73 wrote: »

So now, have no money saved for renting,( would have had over £1200)

Would have you been able to hold on to that money anyway if you were going for BR?

sillygirl73

Yes we would as would have sorted house situation out first.........used money for deposit etc and then gone BR.

immoral_angeluk

To qualify for MR it's not being in 3 months arrears, you must be at risk of homelessness and at the very least received a 14 day notice of repossession action, feel real sympathy for you that it wasn't better explained.

fatbelly

There's a lot of confusion over this scheme (understatement) and different councils apply the rules differently and have varying degrees of enthusiasm for the scheme.

I hope you're not saying that the adviser at the CAB also works for the local council as their mortgage rescue 'champion'.

You may need someone at the CAB to put pressure on as (from what I can see) you do qualify. The problem is that the future of the scheme is very uncertain and existing funding is closing rapidly.

We're expecting some sort of announcement in next week's spending review. Personally I'm an optimist and I hope the mortgage-to-rent option survives, though it may get tweaked.

So my suggestion is wait for next week and, if it's not killed off completely, give it a good push.

sillygirl73

fatbelly wrote: »

There's a lot of confusion over this scheme (understatement) and different councils apply the rules differently and have varying degrees of enthusiasm for the scheme.

I think our council has been one of the more enthusiastic, and flexible.

I hope you're not saying that the adviser at the CAB also works for the local council as their mortgage rescue 'champion'.

Yes, he is and was very sure that we qualified!. He has been very successful (so he says!).....


We're expecting some sort of announcement in next week's spending review. Personally I'm an optimist and I hope the mortgage-to-rent option survives, though it may get tweaked.

So my suggestion is wait for next week and, if it's not killed off completely, give it a good push.

Thats good advice, thank you

Angiepange

fatbelly wrote: »

We're expecting some sort of announcement in next week's spending review. Personally I'm an optimist and I hope the mortgage-to-rent option survives, though it may get tweaked.

So my suggestion is wait for next week and, if it's not killed off completely, give it a good push.

I would agree with Fatbelly. Hopefully the mrs won't be discontinued, but you will need to be prepared to really push your application and don't be afraid to contact anyone involved in your case and dare I say 'make a nuisance of yourself', but you know what I mean!! I had to 'badger' the case along myself all the way through, although I have a friend who has just completed on mrs and they had a really good council woman who kept on top of everything for them! So, I guess it varies which area/council you are in.

Good Luck, and don't hesitate to get in touch if I can be of any help.

Angie x

sillygirl73

An update:

Have had long conversations with mortgage lender, CAB advisor/council contact and they have come to the same conclusion.
My lender won't support MR as we are not in enough arrears and still suggest that I should not have paid anything towards my mortgage.
On reflection, surely this would show that i was being irresponsible as could have paid, however chose not to (which while going down repo route would have been ok, going for MR would not).
The scheme is being reviewed next week, and the general feeling is that it would continue, all beit with tighter criteria, which we currently would not meet. The other complication is that we plan to go BR once house situation sorted, and he now advises that we do not go for MR if we want to go BR..........he was aware of this in June:mad:.
So as we are not facing imminent eviction (yet) we are not going for MR this year. If circumstances change and we qualify, then of course we will try again.

So now need to get my head round what we do next........our mortgage is £850, we can afford to pay £450 and renting would be at least £550:(. We may qualify for some housing benefit which could help, but not sure how much.

The other issue is that my DH has a car on HP with Peugeot, so know that they will probably take it back once we go BR (which would save us money) but we really need a car, as DH needs to be in work for some 5.30am shifts and there is no public transport at that time. Plus we have a 1 year old and the thought of having to rely on buses fills me with dread (I know that loads of people do manage, and I know I'll have to cope.......just a bit sad!)

So, what to do now?
Stop paying mortgage completely, and save £450 per month to bo towards BR fees and deposit, and allow house to be repossessed?

Or continue with reduce payment plan for mortgage and other creditors and wait and see what the new year brings?

Am hopefully seeing my CAB caseworker (not the MR person) next week to discuss options..........just would be grateful for any thoughts?

dancingfairy

I thought that going through mr was best to do before BR becasue then you don't have a mortgage - you pay rent to the housing association and may be able to claim housing benefit and then any extra you owe onthe mortage if you are in negative equity becomes an unsecured debt and you can then include it in any bankruptcy. I know AngiePane has been through this the other way around and went bankrupt first and then tried to go through the mortgage rescue which seems to have caused no -end of problems.
Are you in negative equity?
Also do you know what sort of rent your house would fetch? if you had a a rough idea of what you might be charged you could look on the entitled to website and hopefully it would give you an idea of what amount of housing benefit you could get to help with your decisions. I think there is are rules on how much rent the housing association can charge you as a % of the market rental value but I'm afraid I don't know how much this is.
Firstly you need to wait and see what the rules are for the mortgage resuce scheme and whether you'll be able to apply or whether you think you will be eleigible in the near future I would have thought. If this looks like an option then persue it, if not then I think I would be inclined to save up for a new rental place and then look at going bankrupt (this is my personal opinion and I am in no way qualified so please don't just go off what I'm saying) - I am sure others will be able to help you far far more.
Good Luck
df