Any advice gratefully received!!

port26

Hi,
We have gotten ourselves in a huge financial pickle over the last few years... It has come to a head now and we are faced with reposession of our house We can just afford to pay the mortgage and secured loan but it totals over £1500 and we only now earn £2000 a month..Its only a 2 bed flat and we have 2 small children so the duty solicitor in court advised my husband to " hand the keys back" and go bankrupt.. we know its the only option left for us but its scary. The council have agreed to help once we have the 28 days notice but worried we won't find somewhere. No good looking at local Estate agents as credit rating is so bad..Not many private lets around..just be interested to hear from others in our situation as we haven't told anybody as too ashamed.

poppysarah

Council is your best option.

Sadly bit late to be too fussy.

Speak to shelter for advice on what council is legally obliged to do

madmish00

Do not hand the keys back!

That is rubbish advise from the solicitor. The council will deem you to have made yourselves intentionally homeless if you do that. Wait for notice to be served and then go to the council.

G_M

Have you looked into the governments mortgage protection scheme?

What is the flat worth and how much is the mortgage? Are you in negative equity?

As madmish says, do not make yourselves intentionally homeless.

dancingfairy

Speak to Shelter.
One option MAY be to stop paying the mortgage and secured loan and save up for rented/unexpected costs etc but you need to be careful this does not consitute making your self intentionally homeless so check this out carefully.
Best of Luck
df

katygeorge

hi im in the process of doing this, i stopped paying my mortgage and secured loan in december, ive just found a place to live and move in on the 15th. ill be handing my keys back on the 16th. The council wont help. I found just being honest with the letting agents and my new landlord helped - some may ask for a few months rent upfront instead of 1. i found mine by looking in the paper as the letting agents were not very helpfull. good luck i hope you sort something, ild speak to people about it as it does take the weight off a bit

BitterAndTwisted

There's no such thing as "handing the keys back". Even if you choose to do this your obligation to pay the mortgage will continue until you default, get into arrears and the property is repossessed.

From what you have posted it appears that you are currently not in arrears yet. There may be a way to hang onto your home. Have you looked into a mortgage-payment "holiday"?

It is possible to survive on £500 a month if you're prepared to do some hard work and cope with a huge amount of self-denial.

How about posting up your your SOA on the Debt-Free Wannabe part of the forum and see what advice you can garner over there?

port26

Thank you everybody for your replies.. We have been in this situation for 2 nearly 3 years now. since I was made redundant whilst on maternity leave. We have huge arrears on the secured loan £8,000 which would mean an extra £80 a month, which we just don't have and about £3,000 on the mortgage We have a suspended possesion order on the house from the mortgage and a suspeneded court hearing on the secured loan. Have been in touch with Shelter who offered great help but our money still doesn't meet our outgoings. So worried we will end up in a hostel with 2 small children..

Spring_Time

I am so sorry you are in this situation. You should head over to the bankruptcy board here on this site. It is packed full of people who have been where you are and will be able to offer you a lot of advice.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=136

I wish you lots of luck.