Shall we go bankrupt?

Rosey321

I spoke to the OR. Thankfully, she didn’t have any problem with me withdrawing it, even though it went in on BR day.
I’ve got some expenses for mileage being paid in tomorrow too – about £150. I declared this to her too and happily she said that was pretty much mine to do with as I please as long as the account isn’t frozen – she said she has no interest in the money that goes in after BR day.
Peace of mind has returned……….

philnicandamy

Good news...

Rosey321

Right, so I'm working through my mental checklist.... I've got my co-op account sorted now and now I'm digging out all the necessary ready to send to the OR before our telephone interview on Tuesday (gulp!). Got all the bank statements but not many CC statements - I think she'll have to request those herself in due course.

Told a creditor about BR yesterday - funny how my fear of speaking to creditors has vanished. Welcome phoned me at work yesterday which took me aback. They were chasing the payment just gone which I had cancelled to help fund the BR. Told them of the BR. They said 'so you're not going to make another payment then?'. I said 'no' - I've never heard anyone lose interest in a phone call so quickly. He just said he would make a note and the case would go through their solicitors so they could recoup the money. Impossible as the shortfall of my voluntary repo was on my BR petition! They should get a fair bit back from mine and other half's likely IPA though.

Anyway, talking of voluntary repo, I have drafted a letter to Halifax which I'm going to send out today. Can you tell me what you think, whether I've missed anything out etc..

---

Halifax Mortgages
PO Box 548
Leeds
LS1 1WU

Mortgage Roll No: *********** 21st May 2008


Dear Sir Or Madam


Please accept this letter as confirmation that we wish to voluntarily surrender the keys to our property, (**********) to yourselves so that you may repossess the house as you require.

We were declared bankrupt on 12th May 2008 and have now left the property. As a result of our bankruptcy, we shall no longer be contributing any further payments towards our mortgage and henceforth, I would advise that you cease any further payment requests and freeze the balance as appropriate.

As the first charge on the property, we shall be surrendering the keys to yourselves for voluntary repossession and request if you have any wishes on how this should be achieved.

I believe the mortgage outstanding to yourselves is currently in the region of £172,000.
For your information, the last valuation of the property made earlier this year was for £195,000.
Despite bleak reports in the housing market, local market trends suggest that there should be no problem in Halifax recouping the full mortgage outstanding in the event of repossession and subsequent sale or auction. I should add that in the unlikely event of a shortfall to yourselves in this instance, the shortfall liability will not fall to us as this will then form part of our bankruptcy.

The property itself (a 4/5 bed townhouse) is in excellent order and still has 5 years of its NHBC guarantee outstanding. In addition to the keys, we still hold many relevant details relating to the property as well.

Lastly, we should also mention that a second and third charge also exists on the property.
Our Official Receiver should be in contact with you shortly to discuss further.

In the meantime, please can you advise of any instructions that we should follow to return the keys? Any mail sent to the property will reach us by means of mail redirection.

We would like to thank you for your assistance in this matter and also for your help and support over the past few years. As a lender, we have found you to be most helpful and naturally regret the course of action detailed above which sadly has become a necessary route to take.

Yours Faithfully

maxmycardagain

are you sure you wish to hand in the keys? do you have a place to move into already?

Rosey321

maxmycardagain wrote: »

are you sure you wish to hand in the keys? do you have a place to move into already?

Yes, we have been in rented for the past month. The house in question is totally empty.

Rosey321

It’s been a while since I added to this due to internet access problems.

We had our interview with the OR a week ago , mine was first followed by my wifes. Each interview lasted about 45 mins. There were a lot of questions that my wife didn't need to answer as a result of OR speaking to me first as well. All seemed OK – she genuinely appears a nice voice to have on the end of the phone line.

Two bits of great news to come from the call was that firstly, she sees no need for us to lose our car. Mainly due to the fact I have a motorway commute and we have a young daughter. The car is probably worth about 2.5k but it is only a 1.0 litre so we hardly have a vehicle that is beyond our means!! Anyway, all good on that front.

Also, she sees so need to tell our landlord either. As it happens, there was no mention of BR in the tenency agreement anyway but it’s still good she is not going to mention this. She basically said that as we are not in rent arrears, and that the landlord is not a creditor, there is no need to say anything.
Again, I don’t believe she will say anything to our work either.

She has now gone away to consider our facts and figures ahead of what I believe is an inevitable IPA for the both of us. I pretty much told her that we expect to contribute and I think she may have appreciated that too.
We have both been paid in the last couple of weeks so we are having a month free from IPAs at the moment which is also great. I assume it’ll kick in in time for payday at the end of this month (although I have seen a couple of posts on here mentioning it taking a couple of months before).

I sent Halifax a letter telling them of my intentions to surrender the keys to our owned property and giving it up for voluntary repo. That was a couple of weeks back and I await news on that front too.

Our names would have been in the paper too by now. Again, that passed by without any issues. It wasn't in the local press, but apparently in the paper near where the court is based. We didn't see our name in lights - and it certainly appears that no-one else we know saw it either!

Anyway, that’s my update. Three weeks already since BR day. All in all, quality of life is so much better, and I know it will continue to be after the IPAs kick in compared to what it was pre-BR. I feel good that someone else (OR) is looking after my money worries now which has lifted such a heavy weight off our shoulders. I know I’m lucky to have what appears to be a very friendly OR too – although on the whole they seem to be a rather decent group of people anyway judging by a lot of the posts. I guess they have to be empathetic and non-judgemental in that role (although I’m sure some out there will tell me there are exceptions to the rule!)

Cheers all

Waspeze

Really glad to hear things seem to be going well for you

Good news about the car and not telling your landlord!

I was the same with my OR, basically told him i'd be paying an IPA as i'd got myself into debt so wanted to pay what I could! Like you he seemed to appreciate that!

Rosey321

Just a quick update to the thread really.

Not a great deal has happened since the last post .We agreed our IPA figures about a month ago which is due to kick in in August (although still to have the official bits and pieces about telling us how to pay etc). The IPA figures were very fair and I think all the amounts we quoted must have been accepted.

Strangely enough, they made a bit of an error on my one. They mentioned on my wife's agreement about paying into her nil tax code IPA but this paragraph was omitted from mine. I telephoned OR to tell her and she confirmed that I should be contributing to a nil tax IPA (although the tax code hasn't happened yet) and it must have been an oversight (much as I would like to keep my nil tax proceedings, honesty is the best policy - in fact the only policy in BR I believe!!!).
On the whole though, it has now been nearly three months without the IPA kicking in which is great and has helped us find our feet. I know it'll run for 36 months regardless but the breathing space first has been good.

The creditors have now all had their letters from the OR and in turn, the letters to us have stopped. One of our creditors is our in-laws so I have heard the contents of the letter. Again, all pretty good. The OR seems to have been kind to us. It states our reasons for going BR and also gives the OR's own opinion. Basically, it seems the OR explained our circumstances and made it clear that the debts were nothing to do with being frivolous, that it just spiralled beyond our control. They also basically said that it is best the creditors accept the contents of the letter, that there was no need to call a meeting between them and that if any creditor did want to call a meeting, they would have to pay for it themselves!

The only other stalemate situation is the voluntary repo. The keys have been returned to the lender but they refuse to get the wheels in motion until I have confirmed in writing that I willing to let them pursue me for the shortfall. As the shortfall is contained within the BR, I keep sending them back mail not agreeing to this. They say it is their company policy and that they can't speed up the voluntary repo process until I agree. The irony is that if they auctioned/sold it now they would probably just about get the money anyway (give or take a tiny bit maybe). By holding off, they are more likely to be short. Also, by holding off and losing the bit of equity that is in the house, surely they are losing equity that could be split amongst the other creditors? Anyway, I'm not losing too much sleep over that one - if it takes 2 days or 2 years to sell, that's their lookout I think!

Otherwise, all quite quiet. No OR contact other than when I have rung her up. I think I have built up a good relationship with the office there. I value their advice and I think they do in turn value my honesty and the general willingness to assist them with any queries that they might have. I think that this kind of attitude on both sides is a good one to have and before long you come to realise that the OR doesn't have to be the scary office that you always feared before the interview - in fact they are a decent bunch who really are there to help. They aren't there to punish, they are there to be impartial and basically remove a massive weight from your shoulders!! I know some people may have met an exception to this rule, but on the whole, anyone who is worried will find that their fears will not be as they thought!

Posthinking

I've always said, and been pilloried for it on occasion, that honesty with the OR is essential. You sleep better

tigerfeet2006

Thanks for your excellent post Rosey. It will be so useful for those going through the process.

Don't forget if you have a change in circumstances during the 36 months to let the OR know within 21 days so the IPA can be adjusted up or down or suspended.

All the best.