Tomlin Order & Poor Solicitor?

pokerbirch

24 years ago, my ex husband and I took out an endowment mortgage for £39,000 to buy a property. We shared all bills 50/50. 4 years later we divorced and sold the property during a major slump and were left with a debt of £10,000. At the time, my ex husband paid the mortgage provider a settlement fee of £2500 as advised by his solicitor, however my own solicitor advised me to ignore all letters from the mortgage provider. I followed this advice and ignored the demands until they stopped. My debt then lay dormant for about 14 years until 6 years ago, when a Tomlin order was raised via Drydens, saying I owed the mortgage provider £38,000. I have been paying £200 a month for the last 6 years and it is crippling me as I have a very low income. My partner of 18 months has recently moved in to my rented property and we are now sharing all financial bills 50/50. Having looked at the Tomlin order situation, he has said that his gut feeling is that something is 'not right' in the fact that:

a) I was advised by my solicitor to ignore the letters from the mortgage provider
and
b) The debt lay dormant for 14 years and has obviously incurred a LOT of interest during that time

My partner has said that he would be willing offer the mortgage provider (Halifax) a final settlement fee in order to relieve me of this monthly burden, however he would like some clarity before doing so. In particular, he feels that I may be due compensation because I was given poor legal advice and/or it was 'unfair' to allow the debt to accumulate to such a large amount without keeping me informed of the potential outcome.

Please advise as I have not slept well for many years and this financial situation has caused me to have anxiety and depression.

sourcrates

Hi,

This is a strange one, I`m assuming the 10k was a mortgage shortfall, am I correct ?

If the debt had lain dormant for 14 years, then it would of become statute barred after 12 years, so you would not of been liable after that point.

Also all interest and charges should of stopped after the property was sold (subject to the terms of the mortgage agreement).

The Tomlin order further complicates matters, I think you need to get some proper legal advice on this ASAP, possibly post on here :


http://legalbeagles.info/


They are more tuned in to the legal side of things.


The debt was effectively statute barred before the Tomlin order was agreed, so may not be valid.

DandelionPatrol

I agree with sourcrates, it should have been statute barred at 12 years - although if the ex took more than 2 years to come to his settlement, his payment might reduce the payment void to less than 12 years.

redux

I'd never heard of a Tomlin order before, and from brief reading I don't understand how or why it was applied to your case, or how they arrived at the escalation of the amount.

Is there any chance the starting basis of their calculations is £7500 rather than £5000, being £10000 minus the £2500 the ex husband paid, rather than half?

To reach £38000 in 14 years, the effect is of compound interest at either 12 or 15%, depending on whether they are starting from £7500 or £5000

Either of these rates seem excessive, given where rates had been in those years.

If they'd used 7 or 8%, the sum would have reached £13000 or £15000

Good legal advice needed, as already suggested.