Advice please re old debt

Nellythe

Good evening
6 years ago I Owned a house that was rented out . A tenant moved out and at the sane time I was ill . Sadly I ended up having the house repossessed . The mortgage company Northern Rock sold the property via auction . I heard no more until a month ago I received a letter saying there was a shortfall in the amount they sold it for and now want £25000. How can they wait 6 years . In the mean time I’m retired through I’ll health ( cancer) and on half the income I was . I still have my own mortgage . What can I do ? Thank you

sourcrates

Hi,

12 years is the limitations period on mortgage shortfall debts.

Obviously it’s an impossible amount of money for you to find, basically you just tell them your circumstances, put it all in writing, including a copy of your budget.

If you can make an offer of payment then do so, get in touch with one of the debt charities in my signature for further advice.

fatbelly

You could use standard debt advice, maybe try National Debtline.

They do have a useful factsheet on these types of debt and it would do no harm to start to run through their standard letters

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/mortgage-shortfalls/mortgage-debt.aspx

Just_Di

Nellythe wrote: »

6 years ago I Owned a house that was rented out . A tenant moved out and at the sane time I was ill . Sadly I ended up having the house repossessed . The mortgage company Northern Rock sold the property via auction . I heard no more until a month ago I received a letter saying there was a shortfall in the amount they sold it for and now want £25000. How can they wait 6 years . In the mean time I’m retired through I’ll health ( cancer) and on half the income I was . I still have my own mortgage .

Was this a Northern Rock Together Mortgage where part of the loan was secured on the property with a linked unsecured loan?

If so, the funds recovered from the repossession of the property and subsequent sale at auction would have been used to redeem the secured loan first, meaning the unsecured loan could be Statute Barred after six years.

However you say the property was rented out so was this a Buy-To-Let mortgage which would not have been regulated by the CCA? In those circumstances a LPA Receiver would have been appointed and perhaps arranged for sale of the property (having added their fees etc.) unlike a 'traditional' repossession.

Is it Northern Rock who has written to you about the shortfall or was the 'debt' assigned to Landmark or Whistletree etc.

Do you recall whether you had PPI on the original loan and whether you attempted to make a claim when you became ill?

Before assuming you really do owe £25k it may make sense to do some research.

I'm sorry you've been dealing with cancer as well as this issue but it's possible that Northern Rock's sensitive team may be able to take a look at your situation and come to a resolution.

If not then depending on what you discover with your research, it may be possible to make a formal complaint to Northern Rock which you can escalate to the FOS.

I wish you well.

Di

EssexHebridean

If you DID have PPI and didn't claim on it then make sure you make an attempt to reclaim that too - NR were devils for mis-selling.