How do you go about voluntarily surrendering your property to the mortgage company?

Cinderbrook

Hi, I realise I have been making maximum use of this board recently but the situation is this...I have a property that I don't live in anymore which is proving almost impossible to sell. It is in one of the northern cities and there is a glut of properties to say the least. It is due to go to auction fairly soon. If it doesn't sell for over the value of the mortgage I will have to `give the keys back' to the mortgage company.

Does anyone know the best way to go about this? I know that the mortgage company will issue a form for me to sign but I wonder if this is the best thing for me. I can't afford legal advice. Has anyone been through this?

Scarlett.1974

Hi cinderbrook,

We're currently going through this exact situation.

We moved out of our house a couple of weeks ago and into rented. H rang the mortgage co. last week to tell them we'd left and that the property was empty. They said they would send out the Voluntary Surrender form for us to sign, but it hasn't arrived yet and even when it does we're not sure if we're actually going to sign it anyway. We'll certainly be going over it with a fine tooth comb first.

We know for a definite fact that when the house sells there will be a substantial shortfall, but this will be covered in the BR (next month).

Funnily enough, the mortgage co. rang today and asked if we'd had the form yet? H told them no, not yet. They then asked for our new address, which H (politely) refused to give them, telling them we have our post re-directed for 6 months, so any letters that go to the old house will find their way to us. The woman he spoke to got quite agressive at this point, told him we wouldn't be able to do the Voluntary Surrender without our new address (I don't believe this, could anyone confirm?) and then hung up the phone :eek:

Not sure how much this helps, seeing that we haven't actually gone through it yet, but hopefully it will help for you to know you're not alone

Cinderbrook

Thank you Scarlett and good wishes to you.

I have a feeling that it isn't the best thing to sign the form. I need to find out about this but I think signing the Mortgage companys' own form just means that you agree to incur the shortfall if it then sells the property for less than the value of the mortgage. Does anyone know anymore?
Thanks,
C

fermi

Cinderbrook wrote: »

I have a feeling that it isn't the best thing to sign the form. I need to find out about this but I think signing the Mortgage companys' own form just means that you agree to incur the shortfall if it then sells the property for less than the value of the mortgage.

I'm told that many of the voluntary surrender forms have a clause to that effect.

The advice seems to be either don't sign the form, or if you absolutely have to then cross out any offending bits very clearly.

Notgotapottoweein

Cinderbrook wrote: »

Thank you Scarlett and good wishes to you.

I have a feeling that it isn't the best thing to sign the form. I need to find out about this but I think signing the Mortgage companys' own form just means that you agree to incur the shortfall if it then sells the property for less than the value of the mortgage. Does anyone know anymore?
Thanks,
C

I'm pretty sure that any shortfall is included in your bankruptcy regardless of signing any form or not.

But i would not take a chance personally and i have refused to sign anything any of my creditors have sent me so far.

fermi

Reading Tim's replies on this thread on another site might help.

Voluntary surrender forms

Plus the link below will take you to some search results discussing similar issues.

http://www.debtquestions.co.uk/debt_forum/search.php?keywords=surrender&terms=all&author=TalbotWoods&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=topics&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

fermi

Scarlett.1974 wrote: »

They then asked for our new address, which H (politely) refused to give them, telling them we have our post re-directed for 6 months, so any letters that go to the old house will find their way to us. The woman he spoke to got quite agressive at this point, told him we wouldn't be able to do the Voluntary Surrender without our new address (I don't believe this, could anyone confirm?) and then hung up the phone :eek:

Once you are BR they will find out your new address anyway.