Getting house reposessed deliberately?

Cantdance_2

By the way I got the figures slightly wrong - the house is actually up for £149,995 and there's an asking price offer on the table but this came in about 2 months ago and the people can't sell their house so I don't consider it a real offer.

If we really did sell for that much then we'd be able to clear the mortgage, redemption fee and solicitors etc - but with every week that passes I feel the chances of really selling for that much are pretty limited.

The mortgage portion of the £908 monthly payment is about £750 - but the rental value of the property is actually only about £550. So I can't see NR agreeing to let us rent it out. So unless we have a friend or work colleague who wanted to rent it short term this looks like a non-starter too.

owitemisermusa

poppy10 wrote: »

.....
Welcome to Negative Equity.

If the house was repossessed and the bank sold it for less than the house was worth, they could chase you for the shortfall. Typically they would leave it a few years to let you get back on your feet, then start chasing you when you have built up some money again.

I wish you good luck, but if you chose to take out a 100% interest only loan and then borrowed £30k on top of that from your mortgage lender, you really have only yourself to blame for the situation you now find yourself in. All that money wasn't given to you for free. Sorry to be blunt.

I'm sorry, but I don't see how this post is particularly helpful. The OP didn't come here for 'I told you so', just help in a sticky situation. Please keep your personal judgement and thoughts to your self, thank you.

To the OP, please don't do anything that will harm you and add to your stress. I don't think reposession is the answer, as someone said, the banks will chase you down for any shortfall plus costs (and whatever you've got left).

I think interest-only payments and possibly renting it out are good options. More experts will be around shortly to offer advice.

Hang in there.

seven-day-weekend

The OP has said that he mortgage is already interest-only and to rent it will be around £200 a month shortfall.

TBH, and without being judgemental, this thread is a good illustration of what the results are of over comittment. Let's hope it can help someone else as well as the OP.

You shouldn't rely on two full incomes. What if one of you loses their income through illness/redundancy etc? I know you don't think about spliting up when you are young but these two scenarios should be considereed.

OP, I do feel for you, I know you didn't puposely get in this mess.

How you get out of it I don't know. Maybe sell your house for what you can and try one of the free Debt management agencies like CCCS for some advice on paying off the shortfall.

Hope it works out for you.

silvercar

I find it distasteful that some are laughing at others misfortune.

At some point in our lives we all take risks, assess the likelihood of things going wrong and make our moves.

If you really wanted to right off the negative equity you would need to both go bankrupt, your credit would be stuffed for 6 years. This needs careful thought; at the very least it would involve both of you agreeing to bankruptcy.

MissMuppet

I would also like to recommend posting on the Bankruptcy board, we're all very friendly... although I can't help with this particular problem, there will be loads that can.

Selling_Up

silvercar wrote: »

I find it distasteful that some are laughing at others misfortune.

I don't see anyone laughing.

Cantdance_2

No I don't see anyone laughing either, it's pretty obvious we took a gamble that the prices would continue to rise and our salaries with them, and it hasn't worked out.

At least we learned not to gamble in future!

SquatNow

The best thing (for the OP, not for the banks depositors) the OP could do is to declare bankrupcy while they still have time.

There is no way out of the situation they are in.

Go for bankrupcy now or you'll spend the rest of your lives trying to pay the debt off.

And don't assume the government wont make going bankrupt a damn site harder in the near future... once a lot of people do it the government will be forced to limit it else it will destabilise the banking system.

MissMuppet

I think I agree with this, not having a property myself doesn't really qualify me to help out but I agree that it may be more difficult to go bankrupt in the future...

You have a lot of debt, especially the joint loan over 30 years, do you really want to be paying this still (with the ex) when you have found someone new and want a fresh start??

Cantdance_2

Okay so thank you all for your feedback. I think the first thing to do is work out the absolute bottom line of what we can sell the house for and still pay solicitors, estate agents and the mortgage.

I'd say roughly with £137K mortgage plus £6K penalty and, what £2K agents fees, looks like £145K is our bottom line.

So the first thing to do is probably go on with a couple more agents, get it on for £145K (£10K below original price) and see if anyone bites.

If that doesn't work, then I'll have to look at some more options - in the meantime I'll do some research on bankruptcy, at the moment it seems like a nice clean slate to start my entire life anew from, but I'm well aware it can't be as easy as it sounds.

Thanks again