Northern Rock - suspended possession order

[springwater]

hello all,

My sister has a suspended possession order on her home. The mortgage payment is £320 and she has been paying £100 amount per month under the court order in order to clear the arrears. The arrears were £2200 when order was made and now stand at around £1500. She has paid every month, on time up until January.

Her financial circumstances have changed and she can now no longer afford to pay the £100 per month extra in order to clear the arrears. She has paid the basic mortgage amount for January and wishes to go to court to get her arrangement altered so she can afford it each month.

Is this possible? And if so, how does she do it?

We are expecting Northern Rock to set another court date anyway as the arrangement has now been broken, they have not as yet, is there a way she can get in first?

[PlanB]

Re: Northern Rock - suspended possession order

Of course your sister can apply to the court to vary her suspended possession order using a Form N244. Here it is with Guidance Notes:

http://hmctsformfinder.justice.gov.u...s/n244-eng.pdf

I suggest she gets help quickly (before NRAM start anything nasty) from her local CAB to complete the form and who can often send someone to the hearing to represent an applicant. If not when she gets to the court ask to see the Duty Solicitor who can be her advocate at the hearing and this is a free service if she is on a low income or on benefits.

This time round she should get something written into the order which prevents the lender from evicting her if she defaults again. Something like "no eviction without return to court". This means she gets to go in front of a DJ to explain what's gone wrong and the judge can use his/her discretion to prevent a warrant for eviction being granted. Most DJs bend over backwards to prevent evictions.

You haven't said why her circumstances have changed, but is she getting all the benefits she may be entitled to such as Working Tax Credit even if she is in work? If she's lost her job she may be entitled to Mortgage Interest Support where the DWP will pay some (or all if it's an interest only product) of her monthly mortgage payment. This info may help her:

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_ad...tgage_interest

If her mortgage is a repayment loan then she should ask NRAM to change it to interest only to reduce the monthly payments. Or she can ask them to capitalize those arrears (add them to the loan) which means she can pay them off over the life of the loan which could be another 15 - 20 years and could be a lot less than £100 per month.

Northern Rock was rescued by the tax payer and should show more forebarance with borrowers in difficulty. If they don't agree to any of these suggestions to lower her payments voluntarily then she should make a formal complaint using NRAM complaints procedure:

http://www.nram.co.uk/en/customers/c...omplaints.aspx

and if that fails she should escalate it to the FOS who regularly intervene in repossessions if they think the lender is not treating a customer fairly.

I wish her luck.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Northern Rock - suspended possession order

You haven't said why her circumstances have changed, but is she getting all the benefits she may be entitled to such as Working Tax Credit even if she is in work? If she's lost her job she may be entitled to Mortgage Interest Support where the DWP will pay some (or all if it's an interest only product) of her monthly mortgage payment.

Sadly, SMI is only paid at the Bank of England’s published Average Mortgage Rate, which currently is 3.63 per cent, not at the actual rate you pay.

[TUTTSI]

Re: Northern Rock - suspended possession order

If she has not already done so she can quote the Cheltenham and Gloucester v Norgan. This case is where you can spread the arrears over the remaining term( I would want to do it quicker and not be under this long term commitment as one missed payment they will automatically repossess). I would ask her to complete an income and expenditure schedule to see what she can afford and also to back this up with her going back to court to ask for the suspended possession order - payments to be amended. She could also try writing to the lender asking for their agreement first to see what they say. But I would certainly work on figures which she can definately afford and not a figure pluicked out of this air. Of course if things change you can always pay slightly more to reduce the balance.

They will go for repossession, so she needs to act fast on this and she may need a solicitor to help if she is unable to deal with this as these Mortgage companies have top teams of lawyers. A suspended possession order if broken they can go for immediate repo.

hello all,

My sister has a suspended possession order on her home. The mortgage payment is £320 and she has been paying £100 amount per month under the court order in order to clear the arrears. The arrears were £2200 when order was made and now stand at around £1500. She has paid every month, on time up until January.

Her financial circumstances have changed and she can now no longer afford to pay the £100 per month extra in order to clear the arrears. She has paid the basic mortgage amount for January and wishes to go to court to get her arrangement altered so she can afford it each month.

Is this possible? And if so, how does she do it?

We are expecting Northern Rock to set another court date anyway as the arrangement has now been broken, they have not as yet, is there a way she can get in first?

[MrZ]

Re: Northern Rock - suspended possession order

hello all,

My sister has a suspended possession order on her home. The mortgage payment is £320 and she has been paying £100 amount per month under the court order in order to clear the arrears. The arrears were £2200 when order was made and now stand at around £1500. She has paid every month, on time up until January.

Her financial circumstances have changed and she can now no longer afford to pay the £100 per month extra in order to clear the arrears. She has paid the basic mortgage amount for January and wishes to go to court to get her arrangement altered so she can afford it each month.

Is this possible? And if so, how does she do it?

We are expecting Northern Rock to set another court date anyway as the arrangement has now been broken, they have not as yet, is there a way she can get in first?

Is there any chance part of her repayment includes an amount from a secured or unsecured loan regulated by the Consumer Credit Act? If so then that suspended possesion could be set aside as they (NRAM) are not entitled to enforce due to their non-compliance of the CCA.

Might be worth looking into.