Hearing on 26th Sept for repossession

janie63

Hi this is a long tail but to cut it short - I am no longer able to work due to various medical conditions such as depression, thyroid disease, fibromyalgia and CFS. I was dismissed from my last job on medical grounds. Since then we have struggled with a mortgage but have made most of the payments since we agreed a payment plan. The last couple of months have been difficult so our payments have been erratic but we have paid. We have approx £5k of arrears and owe £147000 on our mortgage. When they sent us the latest letter I asked if we could make a payment plan and was basically told 'no' they want all the arrears!! There is no way we can get £5k!! I'm on ESA ( support group) and als get PIP. My husband works full time - any ideas how to word my witness statement??

sourcrates

Hi,

You need to speak to soneone who knows there stuff, about this.

I would suggest your local CAB, or maybe National Debtline would be the places to try.
Just bear in mind that repossession is usually a very last resort, and hopefully the court will be able to agree an affordable payment plan for you.

National_Debtline

Hi Janie

You should definitely contact us or another free advice agency as sourcrates suggests. I would also recommend Shelter as they’re a free advice agency that specialises in housing advice. Call them free on 0808 808 4444.

Ideally you need to be able to show the court that you can afford a payment plan where you can maintain the contractual monthly payments, and also clear the arrears within the outstanding term of the mortgage. If you can offer that you would request a suspended possession order. We’ll help you with the wording if you call us.

There might be other things you can ask of your mortgage lender, and raise them at the court hearing if they refuse. You can ask to change to an interest only mortgage, request a payment holiday, and also ask that the arrears are capitalised which means added back on to the end of the mortgage.

Have a read through our Mortgage Arrears factsheet:
www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/mortgagearrears/preventingrepossession.aspx#quicklink1

You could also check whether you're entitled to any extra financial help from a charity grant or trust fund through Turn2us on www.turn2us.org.uk/grants_search.aspx

James
@natdebtline

fatbelly

You are looking for a suspended possession order on the basis of contractual monthly instalment plus X, where X clears the arrears over the remaining term.

So with 5k of arrears if there are 100 months remaining that is £50 to the arrears.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/repossession/going_to_court/what_happens_in_court
http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/repossession/going_to_court/possible_defences

However that has to be affordable and you may wish to post a statement of affairs here for us to help you to put one together.

You can ask the court if anyone runs a court desk and if so, get in touch with them ahead of time. Shelter do some, CAB do some others.