Able to pay before repossession hearing

Wanna_retire

too_much_debt wrote: »

Sorry to hear of your troubles. Can I just ask how long after your term ended they started repossession proceedings only I have a relative who will be in a similar position later this year when their interest only mortgage term ends and they don't have the funds to pay it off. How long do the bank give (roughly) for the money to be paid please? Thanks for any info.

Good luck for next week!

TMD

The term ended in October 2016 and they started proceedings this January. I can't really complain at how they've handled it - one option we were offered was to convert the mortgage to a repayment mortgage which they'd have let run until the younger of us reached pension age. They seemed quite reasonable to deal with both in writing and on the phone. Things became complicated owing to my wife's illness and medical retirement and I failed to keep in touch with the lender until they eventually lost patience with us. Throughout, they continued to take interest payments and report them to CRAs, so our credit rating has remained intact.

Wanna_retire

Is "the rep" a barrister? Solicitor?

fatbelly wrote: »

Dress smartly, call the judge 'sir' or 'maam'

Are judges really influenced by that (so long as you're reasonably polite and don't turn up in a shellsuit)?

In my court

Out of curiosity what was your role?

Wanna_retire

fatbelly wrote: »

If the court confirms that the hearing has been cancelled, preferably in writing, that may be OK. I doubt you have enough time to get that.

But the Mortgage lender appoints a firm of solicitors who send the details to a company of legal reps who find out who is the poor sod who will be at that court with 20 cases that day and give the file to him (or her). That person will probably already have the file, date and time and the instruction to get a possession order against you.

So I'd be cautious and turn up.

Case is tomorrow. I've just spoken to claimant's solicitors who told me "we shan't be attending", they rang the court and then I rang the court. The court told me they were waiting for an email from the solicitor confirming their request that the hearing be vacated, and that they would print it out and give it to the judge. If I get confirmation of receipt of the email from them I guess I can be confident that the hearing won't go ahead?

Silver_Queen

It's hard to say without seeing the charges but I would imagine the hearing fee to be additional - standard charge in my field is around £350 + VAT per hour so the £500 ish quoted would not cover a hearing, but again as I don't work in the debt collection field I have no idea what the standard going rate is.

Anyway, now you've paid up and they're not attending, you shouldn't have to worry about any additional solicitor's fees.

To answer your question, yes, a judge can be influenced by your attitude etc. Politeness and acting humble will go a long way and if a judge decides they don't like you for any reason they can and will make your life more difficult.

A rep is whoever is representing either side. Usually solicitors but sometimes paralegals etc. It doesn't matter really.

You've done the correct things to make sure the hearing will be vacated but realistically, the Court system is cruddy and messages are often not passed along. However, if the case is still listed tomorrow and you don't turn up, you'll probably get an angry call from the Court and you can just ask them to refer to their notes and explain that the matter was settled outside of Court and the Court notified of it today, so the hearing should have been vacated.

Wanna_retire

Silver_Queen wrote: »

You've done the correct things to make sure the hearing will be vacated but realistically, the Court system is cruddy and messages are often not passed along. However, if the case is still listed tomorrow and you don't turn up, you'll probably get an angry call from the Court and you can just ask them to refer to their notes and explain that the matter was settled outside of Court and the Court notified of it today, so the hearing should have been vacated.

State of play now is that solicitors say their letter to us is in First Class post and they've emailed a copy of it to the court, but can't email me a copy "for data protection reasons" (which I suspect is bullsh*t?). Court can't tell me if they've received it ("we get hundreds of emails but if we've had it we'll have printed it and given it to the appropriate department").

If in the worst case scenario a repossession order somehow gets granted in our absence, what would be the cost and effort to us of unwinding the situation?