County Court Summons - Mortgage Shortfall - Advice Needed Urgently, Please Help !!!

Count

After wife left me in 1996 house was repossessed beginning of 1997. As far as I can remember there were some arrears dating back to 1995 which we were trying to pay until the point wife left me.

I have not heard anything from Halifax all these years.

Now they sent me via their solicitors County Court Summons for shortfall of £15.000 + interest of £ 13.000.

To the best of my knowledge I can not recall ever having any information from them about shortfall following repossession and sale of the property and I have never acknowledged liability for it. I do not now if they have ever been in touch with my ex-wife and whether she acknowledged liability in any way.

Please, please can somebody help me with some advice?
What options do I have?
Is their claim statue barred? Can they still pursue me after all this time?
Do I defend the claim and by doing so am I acknowledging the debt?
If I ignore summons pretending it was never received and don't defend the claim what would happen?


I do not own and have not owned another property since and I live with my girlfriend in her house. If I do not defend the claim and Halifax register CCJ against me what can they do? Can they pursue my girlfriend or take charging order against her property?

Is there anyone I can talk to or who could deal with this on my behalf

chevalier

Hi there
Mortgages are not statute barred until 12 years. I am assuming you would have known the house was being reposessed to that you would have been communicating with them up until 1997. So that is less than 12 years ago.

Just to clarify are you saying that you thought the sale of the property following reposession paid off the mortgage in full? If so do you have the paperwork for this? If not then it will be tricky to prove.

Do you still know where your ex is so that you can ask her about this. I appreciate that it might be difficult, but you need to see if she has heard anything about this too. If the mortgage was joint then they should be pursuing both of you.

Ref what to do I would
phone the ex ref this to see what she knows
write to the mortgage company and state you don't believe there was a shortfall after the sale, and to therefore provide the paperwork that shows the shortfall.

You can ask for the court appearance to be brought to your local court to save on travel time. But I would dispute the debt first as above.

If they do provide the relevant information and you do in fact owe the debt, you could dispute paying all of it if the mortgage in joint names.

If you ignore it then I would suggest that they would register a ccj, and that this would effect you getting credit until it was satisfied or until 6 years have elapsed.

As far as I am aware they cannot put a charging order on your gf property
chev

silvercar

THe council of mortgage lenders (CML) members have voluntarily agreed not to chase debts arising from repossessions that have been unacknowledged for more than 6 years, rather than the 12 years they are legally allowed for secured debts.