Picture Home Loans

Concernedalot

We were "persuaded" into taking one of these horrendous millstones about 9 years ago. In 2012 Target (who took over Picture when then went bust a second time) released the security on our house (in error they said). Took them a year to apply to the court of session to have this put back on but we refused. Far as I am aware this then became just a normal loan, albeit a massive one. For the best part of a year now we've heard very little from them, they do have an inhibition on our property for part of the debt (the interest) but not the main loan - and we haven't paid anything to it in this time. I'm bemused why Target are not pursuing us for anything. We also have a neighour boundary dispute which is making our lives quite a misery, but I take it there's no way we can sell up without clearing the inhibition (and I'm sure there's not enough left over if we did try and sell)?

National_Debtline

Hello Concerneda... and welcome to the forum.


You are correct I'm afraid - the inhibition will block any attempts by you to sell or remortgage the property. Target must apply to the court to have the inhibition renewed at five-yearly intervals, but other than that they can effectively just sit tight and await any payments you make if they so wish.


It may be worth a conversation with Target to determine what they are looking to achieve and by when. You may wish to point out your keenness to move away, and highlight the risk that Target will end up recouping less of their money by taking an obstructive approach.


Dennis
@natdebtline

Blue254

Hi Concernedalot

I'm too concerned, my ex husband and I took out a picture loan in 2007 for £38,000, the total amount was £47,581. We had been paying every month until my ex husband and I split up in 2014 he moved out and cancelled the direct debit from the joint bank account and it went into arrears by two payments, I rang them once I had found out and set up a new direct debit but I've been struggling for the last 18 months to pay it with no help from my ex, after they rang me to ask to increase my payment I told them that I could no longer afford to pay the whole monthly direct debit but I would pay half and they should chase my ex for the rest, they have set up a 6 month plan where I pay half of the direct debit but I've been looking into this some more as my house is in negative equity because of the loan and I don't really want to be paying the whole loan myself for the next 11 years, I've been told by my solicitor that I would have to sell the house once my youngest reaches 18, which is in 9 years so I feel that I would be better off if I sold the house now. What concerns me now is I've pulled out every letter for this loan and I came across the ppi letter which states that Picture financial services has ceased trading, there was no mention of who took over and I've not received any paperwork from anyone else regarding it but since reading your blog I've since found out that Picture took over (same letter headed paper as picture financial service) but they have gone bust too, the thing is every phone call I get and letter regarding my arrears, they are on Picture letter headed paper and they answer the calls as Picture, are they allowed to do this if they have gone bust? I'm also thinking is the loan still secured on the property if they have ceased trading? I've also been told that I will be charged £195 interest on the arrears each month, I've barely paid anything off the loan as what I've paid so far has just been paying the interest, it just seems like I'm being ripped off by a company who know longer exists!

burlington6

Blue254 wrote: »

Hi Concernedalot

I'm too concerned, my ex husband and I took out a picture loan in 2007 for £38,000, the total amount was £47,581. We had been paying every month until my ex husband and I split up in 2014 he moved out and cancelled the direct debit from the joint bank account and it went into arrears by two payments, I rang them once I had found out and set up a new direct debit but I've been struggling for the last 18 months to pay it with no help from my ex, after they rang me to ask to increase my payment I told them that I could no longer afford to pay the whole monthly direct debit but I would pay half and they should chase my ex for the rest, they have set up a 6 month plan where I pay half of the direct debit but I've been looking into this some more as my house is in negative equity because of the loan and I don't really want to be paying the whole loan myself for the next 11 years, I've been told by my solicitor that I would have to sell the house once my youngest reaches 18, which is in 9 years so I feel that I would be better off if I sold the house now. What concerns me now is I've pulled out every letter for this loan and I came across the ppi letter which states that Picture financial services has ceased trading, there was no mention of who took over and I've not received any paperwork from anyone else regarding it but since reading your blog I've since found out that Picture took over (same letter headed paper as picture financial service) but they have gone bust too, the thing is every phone call I get and letter regarding my arrears, they are on Picture letter headed paper and they answer the calls as Picture, are they allowed to do this if they have gone bust? I'm also thinking is the loan still secured on the property if they have ceased trading? I've also been told that I will be charged £195 interest on the arrears each month, I've barely paid anything off the loan as what I've paid so far has just been paying the interest, it just seems like I'm being ripped off by a company who know longer exists!

Bet you spent the money though

Blue254

burlington6 wrote: »

Bet you spent the money though

The total loan was for £47,000.00, after they stuck on their PPI, I've already paid a total of £42,500.00 the last 9 years, I have another 11 years and the amount outstanding is 37,300.00. When I total up the remaining payments and what I've paid so far it's a total of £95,000.00. do you really think it's fair that they charge a single woman with two children all that interest, I've almost paid back what I've borrowed.

Faith177

Blue254 wrote: »

The total loan was for £47,000.00, after they stuck on their PPI, I've already paid a total of £42,500.00 the last 9 years, I have another 11 years and the amount outstanding is 37,300.00. When I total up the remaining payments and what I've paid so far it's a total of £95,000.00. do you really think it's fair that they charge a single woman with two children all that interest, I've almost paid back what I've borrowed.

Did they not give you a breakdown of your interest and payments when you took the loan out?

Whenever I've taken a loan out it shows the total amount repayable on the paperwork so it shouldn't come as a surprise

Blue254

Faith177 wrote: »

Did they not give you a breakdown of your interest and payments when you took the loan out?

Whenever I've taken a loan out it shows the total amount repayable on the paperwork so it shouldn't come as a surprise

On the agreement it just had the amount of the advance, the optional PPI which we were told we had to have, then the total amount of credit, the set up fee which was £0.00 then the total loan amount which was the same as the total amount of credit, then underneath the monthly interest rate of 0.639% and variable APR at 7.9%. This was taken for a repayment term of 240 months. There is no mention of how much the interest will be on top of the loan. So I had no idea how much I would actually be paying back, I've been paying the direct debit for the last 18 months with no help from my ex and it's been a struggle paying the mortgage and other bills on top so I needed to do something about it.

Pixie5740

You have joint and several liability for the loan which means there is no such thing as "your half" and "you ex's half", you are each liable for the full loan.

Picture loans, and other secure lenders of the time did offer pretty crap terms. Your paperwork says that you have a variable APR at 7.9%. These variable rates only seem to vary one way and that's up. Even if the interest stayed at 7.9% APR for the duration of your loan you would end up paying back almost £94k on a £47k loan over 20 years. Your monthly payment x 240 would give you a rough estimate of how much you would repay.

I think your best bet would be to try and negotiate something with Picture loan, or whatever they are calling themselves these days, so that you can sell the property. The further you fall into arrears the more likely it is that they will start proceedings to force the sale of your home. You should give National Debtline a call now!

dresdendave

Blue254 wrote: »

The total loan was for £47,000.00, after they stuck on their PPI, I've already paid a total of £42,500.00 the last 9 years, I have another 11 years and the amount outstanding is 37,300.00. When I total up the remaining payments and what I've paid so far it's a total of £95,000.00. do you really think it's fair that they charge a single woman with two children all that interest, I've almost paid back what I've borrowed.

Are you suggesting interest rates should be lower if the borrower is female? I guess you're not a supporter of gender-parity.

Faith177

Blue254 wrote: »

On the agreement it just had the amount of the advance, the optional PPI which we were told we had to have, then the total amount of credit, the set up fee which was £0.00 then the total loan amount which was the same as the total amount of credit, then underneath the monthly interest rate of 0.639% and variable APR at 7.9%. This was taken for a repayment term of 240 months. There is no mention of how much the interest will be on top of the loan. So I had no idea how much I would actually be paying back, I've been paying the direct debit for the last 18 months with no help from my ex and it's been a struggle paying the mortgage and other bills on top so I needed to do something about it.

Just doing the payment you were on initially x the number of months would have given you a basic indication though of how much you would be paying overall