Shared ownership rent arrears - what are my rights?

charlotteb83

Hope this is the right part to post - I’ve put info first but it’s to do with rent so figured here was the place….

I’m on UC

I’m a carer to someone (caring for them for 35 hours per week)

Self employed but not gainfully, and I don’t have to meet the minimum floor income due to my caring role. 

I get housing benefit too, but my property is shared ownership which I pay mortgage on 50% I own and rent to a HA on the other 50%

I have rent arrears of £1800 odd (please don’t judge, I had to kick my abusive partner out so lost an income)

I am not in any mortgage arrears

I pay my monthly rent in full, plus I’ve been overpaying an extra £50 per month to pay back the arrears which is all I can afford. 

I’m now being told by a very surly women from the HA that £50 per month over paying isn’t enough and they will now be informing my mortgage company?!? (Why? I’m not in any arrears with them) 

I was previously told that £50 extra per month was fine and to pay off the arrears with what I could afford, now this new lady has taken over she’s constantly phoning me to remind me to pay the arrears. 

What are my rights? I COMPLETELY know and want to pay off the arrears owed. But I’m paying my rent so it’s not like I’ve stopped paying?!

Surely if I’m paying my full rent each month, plus additional money to repay the arrears they can’t evict me?

Why are they contacting my mortgage company when I’m not in arrears with my payments to them? 

I’m currently feeling mentally unwell at the hands of this women.

I physically cannot afford anymore than a £50 per month overpayment especially as my mortgage is about to go up by £60 per month now too!

chanz4

I would consult someone like stepchange

housebuyer143

Be careful, my sister has a shared ownership house and the contact with the HA basically says if you fall into arrears they can call in the lease/terminate your contract. It actually seemed to be to be worse to be in arrears with HA than it did your mortgage. 
They will inform the mortgage company because this will affect them.

You need advice from a professional because it might be you are focusing on the wrong debt. It might be better to pay the rent and less on the mortgage. They can advise you.

HampshireH

housebuyer143 said:

Be careful, my sister has a shared ownership house and the contact with the HA basically says if you fall into arrears they can call in the lease/terminate your contract. It actually seemed to be to be worse to be in arrears with HA than it did your mortgage. 
They will inform the mortgage company because this will affect them.

You need advice from a professional because it might be you are focusing on the wrong debt. It might be better to pay the rent and less on the mortgage. They can advise you.

This.

Your arrears to the HA are all linked. They are more than entitled to notify the lender that you are behind on payments. It will be in the agreement you signed.

charlotteb83

So despite the fact I agreed with the original person at the HA to overpay to clear the arrears, because they have now decided they want more than the agreed amount I can now be evicted? I was under the impression I couldn’t be evicted from a house I part own? And as I said it’s not like ive completely stopped paying the rent I pay every month, and I’m paying extra to clear the arrears 

housebuyer143

charlotteb83 said:

So despite the fact I agreed with the original person at the HA to overpay to clear the arrears, because they have now decided they want more than the agreed amount I can now be evicted? I was under the impression I couldn’t be evicted from a house I part own? And as I said it’s not like over completely stopped paying the rent I pay every month, and I’m paying extra to clear the arrears 

Your contract will state under what terms you can be evicted and it definitely includes non payment of rent. You don't have security like you should if you owned it all because half you house is provided by way of a tenancy agreement. 
It would take you 3+ years to clear the debt at £50 a month and it might be they have decided they are no longer happy with this arrangement.

As with any tenancy they can't just evict you, but would no doubt need to take legal action in order to do this.

charlotteb83

Thank you. I can’t afford anymore so I have no hope really. I think I need mental help now because I love my home and I’m feeling like I’m going to lose it. Life feels pointless. I thought councils were supposed to try to help with repayments and seemed ok with my overpayment which I agreed, but if I’m just losing my house there’s no point going on 

housebuyer143

charlotteb83 said:

Thank you. I can’t afford anymore so I have no hope really. I think I need mental help now because I love my home and I’m feeling like I’m going to lose it. Life feels pointless. I thought councils were supposed to try to help with repayments and seemed ok with my overpayment which I agreed, but if I’m just losing my house there’s no point going on 

Give stepchange a call, citizen advice etc and get some personalised help. There will be a solution that I imagine doesn't involve you losing your house, but you probably need someone to look over your contract and help you. Maybe you can get discretionary payments on your benefits that you could use to clear more of the debt, you don't know until you ask the right people. 

I didn't want to get you down, just giving the facts. Don't give up! 

Altior

I'm ex shared ownership, and the terms were quite onerous. 

The good news is that the arrears are not out of control, in fact reasonably modest (though it might not feel like that right now).

It's not ordinarily a positive thing to use debt to clear down other debt. However in this situation, there is upside. For example shifting priority debt onto unsecured borrowing. Have you explored a money transfer CC with a teaser rate for example? If you are disciplined with it, that could get you some breathing space and minimum monthly repayments of 1-3%. Most of them will give you over a year, but importantly it will be unsecured and won't impact the property. 

This is more along the lines of debt management rather than property guidance. You may derive some benefit in raising a topic over on the Debt-Free Wannabe board. You'll probably be asked to post a SOA. 

annetheman

housebuyer143 said:

charlotteb83 said:

Thank you. I can’t afford anymore so I have no hope really. I think I need mental help now because I love my home and I’m feeling like I’m going to lose it. Life feels pointless. I thought councils were supposed to try to help with repayments and seemed ok with my overpayment which I agreed, but if I’m just losing my house there’s no point going on 

Give stepchange a call, citizen advice etc and get some personalised help. There will be a solution that I imagine doesn't involve you losing your house, but you probably need someone to look over your contract and help you. Maybe you can get discretionary payments on your benefits that you could use to clear more of the debt, you don't know until you ask the right people. 

I didn't want to get you down, just giving the facts. Don't give up! 

This is great advice, because you might need to refocus on this debt by adjusting your finances elsewhere. To put it in very rough terms (I am a a shared owner, too), being a SO means you are both an assured shorthold tenant (a regular tenant) and a leaseholder, with the main benefit being there is no risk of a "no fault eviction", or Section 21. None of the benefits of being AST in that you pay for everything when things go bad or need fixing, though!

In every other way, you are a "regular" tenant and if you fall behind on the SO rent to the HA, they can evict you. What makes SO uniquely worse as a form of tenure is that by doing so, they will also take over your lease as the Landlord in the lease (the freeholder) - so you can lose everything you put into it. I say this just to emphasise that it is probably the most important payment to keep up, arguably more so than mortgage, which can in exceptional cases be discussed with lender (payment holidays, term lengthening etc) to buy you some time.

The GOOD NEWS is that it is very expensive and a pain for them to evict you, so they will do their utmost to try to make arrangements with you to repay what you owe, rather than go down the eviction route - this is probably why this woman seems to be hounding you.

You may have agreed £50 before (was this in writing? Verbal?), but it is at the HA's discretion to accept the terms of a repayment plan as you do owe them. Clearly they've decided the terms no longer suit them, annoying as that is, I do believe they'll be within their rights to do so.

I would speak to Stepchange, ask them for help with putting together a plan to repay the rent by adjusting your current spending, then you have something you can tell this woman from the HA - that you are proactively finding out how you can increase your repayments of the debt, to their satisfaction. Approach it as a negotiation, they would rather agree something like this with you than evict you, but you need to stay motivated and seek help. That will work in your favour.

theoretica

How many months rent arrears is the £1800?  You are in a much stronger position if you can reduce this below 2 months.  There is some useful stuff here - including the possibility of moving some of the rent arrears onto the mortgage.

https://england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/legal/possession_and_eviction/shared_ownership_arrears_and_possession