home reposessed whilst out of the country!

[rodney224]

Hi,

My home has recently been taken off of me by acenden while I was out of the country for 7 weeks. unfortunately, unknown to me (because I never check my bank, and in the past 8 months I've hardly been in the country to open post) payments had not been made, whenever home i'd not seen any alarming looking post, ie from solicitors (I've had these letters before so would clock that straight away) so presumed everything was fine! and then i got a phone call from a friend who works with a lodger of mine, telling me he'd been woken up to locks being drilled and then told to get his stuff and leave within 30mins!

after the initial shock, I got hold of the company now managing the property, who told me that it would be sold at market value etc, and i would receive any equity, as I was due to sell upon my return anyway, at this point I figured to let it go peacefully and hope for a fast sell!


Now the property is on the market, I'm thinking that I'm being screwed a bit, the amount is almost identical to the amount outstanding, and is less than 2 other properties in the same post code that both have 1 less bathroom and bedroom! where do I stand with this? the fact that I'd never received the letters for court as i was abroad didn't give me the chance to defend myself in court, at which point I would have been able to clear my arrears, surely for eviction (I know this to be true with tenants) there must be proof that the receiver has received such a letter!

there are many other issues here, fees and charges for one, PPI miss sold, and the mortgage itself was a self cert and the company who'd arranged it (warrick finance) told me I had to tweak my income by 5k to get the self cert mortgage, which at the time was to stop a repossession order, at a time of panic, they offered a way out, but into a mortgage that has since been in trouble, as I could never afford ot to start with..............

surely this is irresponsible lending! I am now currently under a high level of stress due to the prospect of the debt from fees this is going to leave me in, and wonder where, if anywhere I stand to take action


I will first be sending a SAR to acenden, warrick finance no longer trade, so I'm not sure how to get info from them,

I hope somebody can help, thankyou!

[PlanB]

Re: home reposessed whilst out of the country!

I hope somebody can help

I'll try :doggieyes:

If you didn't attend the hearing for a good reason then you may have the opportunity to apply to have the possession order set-aside. But the court may only agree to this if you can prove that you did not receive the summons. Can you do that with evidence of plane tickets or passport stamps etc?

You don't have to prove that there weren't any arrears at the time of the missed hearing because you'll be asking the court to give you back your opportunity to seek a suspended possession order (an order that doesn't give your lender the right to take full possession unless you breach the terms of the order). In other words you are asking for a second chance to persuade the court that you will be able to fulfil your financial commitment to the lender within a reasonable period of time.

Repossession is a slow process and it rarely goes as far as eviction and bailiffs without a lot of letters and warnings being sent to the borrower over more than a seven week period. It seems that you may not have taken the early warning signs seriously when you disregarded those letters. I also think that you may struggle to convince the court that you didn't notice the mortgage wasn't being paid for eight months - unless you're a ditzy blonde like me A DJ may take the modern approach that if you travel overseas then you should have online banking. Or they could ask why you didn't notice you were suddenly financially better off then you would expect. I'm only planting these thoughts in you head because that's the sort of thing a DJ will ask you and you need to be prepared with answers if you are lucky enough to get this back into court. The DJ will be assessing your story's credibility.

Here's some possible reasons to defend repossession if you can get this back into a court for a set-aside hearing. Your chances of success will be greater if you can demonstrate to the court why the original order should/would not have been granted:

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

[PlanB]

Re: home reposessed whilst out of the country!

Here's some information about getting a possession order set aside. Ring Shelter's helpline to see if they can provide you will the free legal help you'll need and representation in court.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/wales/...er_the_hearing


If it was me I would ring both the lender and the business managing the property and tell them that you will be making an application to the court for a set-aside hearing within the next seven days. Then follow that up in writing asap.

If it's on the market with an estate agent then call the agent (or make a personal visit) tomorrow and tell then that you will be making a court application to recover your property so they had better stop marketing it. Follow that up in writing too. They can ignore you since sadly at this moment in time you don't actually own *your* the property, but I doubt they'd want to get involved if things are looking messy. So make it look messy Use language like "I'm putting you on notice of imminent legal proceedings :blah: :blah: :blah: ". Most agents would down tools at the thought of legal issues and if the property hasn't got a buyer and hasn't been sold, then you're still in with a chance of getting the keys back. It does happen sometimes

[PlanB]

Re: home reposessed whilst out of the country!

I'd never received the letters for court as i was abroad didn't give me the chance to defend myself in court, at which point I would have been able to clear my arrears

Are you currently in a position to clear your mortgage arrears? If so then why not offer the lender the money and ask them to cancel the possession order and give you back the keys. It worked for this guy after he and his family had been evicted

[rodney224]

Re: home reposessed whilst out of the country!

Hi Plan B, and thankyou,

I think I've miised the window now as it was repossessed on the 27th of July, and i no longer have the funds, but would be able to produce bank statements at the time showing the money was in there! where would this put me?

[MIKE770]

Re: home reposessed whilst out of the country!

they might look at that point above, but then say (if the money is not there it has been used for something else, and more money in the account than you would know to be correct and alarm signals would sound, if you did not bother to check statement for outgoings etc they would probably say well ignorance is not bliss, but as has been said if you got proof of being out of the country albeit only 7 weeks, then proceedings tend to take a lot longer than that as repossession is a last resort, and if you ignored any correspondence ( as you state you recognise certain letters/envelopes)that would be no defence, only my thoughts, but if you go ahead make sure your facts are water tight?

[MIKE770]

Re: home reposessed whilst out of the country!

they might look at that point above, but then say (if the money is not there it has been used for something else, and more money in the account than you would know to be correct and alarm signals would sound, if you did not bother to check statement for outgoings etc they would probably say well ignorance is not bliss, but as has been said if you got proof of being out of the country albeit only 7 weeks, then proceedings tend to take a lot longer than that as repossession is a last resort, and if you ignored any correspondence ( as you state you recognise certain letters/envelopes)that would be no defence, only my thoughts, but if you go ahead make sure your facts are water tight?

If the full balance owed is still in your account then you offer the full arrears amount, and that shows that a Direct Debit system went wrong possibly, and the matter could be sorted out, if the money is not still there, well that would be up to a Judge to decide if it was put before them, as I said make it all water tight? this is just my thoughts, and may be wrong.