About to be evicted - any advice welcome

[PlanB]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

I rang them this morning expecting that they'd just put the £500 plan back in place, but they completely refused to think about it.

Just to recap. You need to make two separate applications to the court asap:

(a) to get the Eviction Warrant suspended

and

(b) to vary the Suspended Possession Order.

They should both be heard by the DJ at the same hearing.

If you fail on (a) you can appeal. Here's something about that option from my favourite housing blog Nearly Legal. Check out this link for more information on repossession and eviction legal precedents:

http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/2013/0...pension-cases/

[neonised]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

GE, apparently will accept a complaint by email - HLFeedback@ge.com, but not fax.

Any idea of what to say? Just that I want them to investigate the way my account has been handled and I feel that I have not been treated fairly, and that I will be escalating the case to the FOS straight away?

[PlanB]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

GE, apparently will accept a complaint by email - HLFeedback@ge.com, but not fax.

Any idea of what to say? Just that I want them to investigate the way my account has been handled and I feel that I have not been treated fairly, and that I will be escalating the case to the FOS straight away?

Be specific not vague. Not a general "it's not fair" whinge. You must list exactly what they've done wrong.

Send an email to advise them that you've spoken to the FOS (which you will have done by the time you send the email) and you will be formalizing your complaint in the next 3 working days. Make it clear that you have an eviction scheduled for the 12th November and that you expect them to suspend that while they investigate your complaint.

I think you may need to send a Subject Access Request (more about that tomorrow) to get hold of all the information on your file which will cover payments, interest and charges added and all the *stuff* surrounding that original SPO. This can take 40 days to process so you'll have to get cracking without this information.

Who were the solicitors handling the repossession. Drydens/Fairfax?

[PlanB]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

Mortgage 2 is a different story. For reasons not relevant, some time ago got into trouble with it

The reasons may be very relevant. If they're a bit awkward then send me a PM and I'll keep them private

[neonised]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

Simply Law. Based at the same address as GE Money. So GE Money then... :-)

[neonised]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

No, not awkward, just didn't want to post a massive great big story if no-one was listening - besides, I'm not sure it makes a difference, I don't dispute that I missed payments, and that I owe them the money. They are complete bastards, and take advantage at every opportunity, but I knew they were sub-prime at the time I took out the mortgage and knew (well, should have known) what I was getting into.

Basically, I run a small business. The recession affected us and we had trouble paying ourselves and the employees etc. I prioritised paying staff members as I felt responsible for them - stupid in retrospect, I accept. Times got very tight, and we got into arrears. Business has improved again, and we've been making regular payments on the GE mortgage since 2011. June and July I made late payments (by days - in both cases I paid half on the due day and the other half a coupe of days later). In August, I missed a payment. In September I was a couple of days late, but paid in full. Because of the late payments and the missed payment, they want payment of the arrears in full.

[PlanB]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

we've been making regular payments on the GE mortgage since 2011. June and July I made late payments (by days - in both cases I paid half on the due day and the other half a coupe of days later). In August, I missed a payment. In September I was a couple of days late, but paid in full. Because of the late payments and the missed payment, they want payment of the arrears in full.

So you've only got one missed payment as per your SPO? That will be the August payment in theory, but in practice it may be seen as the September payment, because the money you paid in September may be seen as paying your August payment arriving late (if you follow me).

[strong123]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

There's roughly £100K of equity in the house.

I rang them this morning expecting that they'd just put the £500 plan back in place, but they completely refused to think about it.

The SPO was granted years ago, during a different arrears situation, long since cleared. With this batch of arrears, we haven't been to court, they are just using the previously granted SPO to just call in the Bailiff without a hearing. My understanding is that once an SPO is granted, it stays on the mortgage forever? You can;t get rid if it?

They told me today not to bother talking to a solicitor as it wouldn't make any difference, my only option was to pay in full. I get the impression that the 'litigation department' are in reality no such thing - they appear to be debt collectors who are probably targeted to collect a certain amount and therefore won't really negotiate.

That's not true, I cleared my mortgage arrears and satisfied the debt, when I fell into arrears again a few years later they had to go through the whole process again. Which thankfully I managed to get settled again.

[strong123]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

That's not true, I cleared my mortgage arrears and satisfied the debt, when I fell into arrears again a few years later they had to go through the whole process again. Which thankfully I managed to get settled again.

Sorry, was referring to yours spo being settled and you thinking it stayed with you indefinitely, which clearly the that's what ge money seem to think...horrible people.

[PlanB]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

I cleared my mortgage arrears and satisfied the debt, when I fell into arrears again a few years later they had to go through the whole process again.

That's what I'm hoping will happen here

[strong123]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

That's what I'm hoping will happen here

I really hope so, I've got my fingers crossed. These people make up their own laws I think!

So glad he's got you helping him.

[PlanB]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

Any idea of what to say? Just that I want them to investigate the way my account has been handled and I feel that I have not been treated fairly, and that I will be escalating the case to the FOS straight away?

I'm not a lawyer but this is what I would do.

What you need now is to throw something, anything, at G E Money to force them to stop that eviction. (This is at the same time as you make those two applications to the court with the help of your local CAB or Law Centre* ).

Tell them that they have no legal right to evict you from your home on 12th November. Tell them that they obtained the Eviction Warrant unlawfully because they relied upon a Suspended Possession Order which had been satisfied some years ago (if you can provide a date so much the better even if it isn't accurate). It'll be up to G E Money to check the facts and hopefully they will give you the benefit of the doubt on this particular issue.

Simply Law are G E Money's in-house lawyers. Write/fax/email them and send a copy to G E Money's Complaints Team.

You are not swearing a Statement of Truth for the court, you are making a complaint which may/may not be upheld. Don't deliberately lie, but if there's the slightest possibility that you may have satisfied those original arrears then that original SPO should have been cancelled (it was up to you to apply to cancel it) and that's the basis of your complaint. If it's not the case then at least you may have bought yourself some time to deal with this eviction issue with outside professional help.

Also make noises about unfair additional charges and interest which can't be considered as arrears for repossession purposes. There's loads of case law on why you shouldn't be repossessed over charges you should only be repossessed over arrears on the contractual mortgage payment. It's complicated and I may not get time to check all this out, but Shelter and/or the CAB should have a housing lawyer who knows this stuff.

* I don't know which part of the country you live in but LawWorks may have a clinic near you which could help. See if there's one using this website link. LawWorks legal advice centres are very good and very committed. I used to volunteer in one so I should know

http://lawworks.org.uk/clinics

[neonised]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

PlanB

Many thanks for all your help this evening. I've dug out what paperwork I can find and will contact the court first thing tomorrow for a copy of the SPO - hopefully this will give me a a clue if I have an angle there. As it happens, I'm pretty close to the court when I'm at work - and if they can get me a copy of the SPO I can walk up there and collect it, so it might not take long.

Once I have the SPO I'll get the complaint running and contact the FOS. I'm not that hopeful about the charges angle - they mentioned today that they 'could' ask for repayment of the charges as well, so I was lucky that I just had to pay £2700 and they were doing me a favour by letting me off the charges. This implies that the arrears don't include the charges (although I'm sure the charges balance is totally wrong). I will however complain that the reason for the default in the first place was down to them messing about with the agreement (which they did in May) and that I should be allowed to just bring the agreement up to date.

As an alternative angle, we've pushed the boat out at work (my own business) approaching customers with quotes and offering discounts if they accept our quote and pay int he next 7 days. I'm working on actually getting the money together to pay them - everything else we're trying is hopeful, but the only absolutely certain way of getting them to call the dogs off is to pay them. And according to what I'm hearing, that would remove the threat of the SPO in the future, so if I can pay off the arrears, that would seem to be the optimal approach.

I'm also going to try ringing them tomorrow and just seeing if I get to speak to someone more reasonable. maybe another attempt to get them to reinstate the agreement might work - especially if I mention that I; going to get a hearing to ask for the arrears to be rolled onto the mortgage?

I'll update the thread tomorrow - but in the meantime, thanks again for your help. It amazes me that there are people out there like you with so much expertise, helping people like me just because you're nice. Restores your faith in humanity, especially after a day of dealing with people like GE.

[PlanB]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

I will however complain that the reason for the default in the first place was down to them messing about with the agreement (which they did in May) and that I should be allowed to just bring the agreement up to date.

What happened in May?

[PlanB]

Re: About to be evicted - any advice welcome

I'm also going to try ringing them tomorrow and just seeing if I get to speak to someone more reasonable. maybe another attempt to get them to reinstate the agreement might work - especially if I mention that I; going to get a hearing to ask for the arrears to be rolled onto the mortgage?

Who are you dealing with on the phone at the moment? Is it G E Money Collections team or their solicitors? You need to get through to G E Money who have the power to instruct their solicitors to call off the impending eviction if they want. Whatever you say on the phone must be backed up in writing (email is fine).

The message you need to get across to the lender is that you have sought advice and will be making an application to the court to suspend the Eviction Warrant, and another application to the court to vary the Suspended Possession Order (very likely to be successful) and capitalize the arrears (less likely to be successful). Ask them in the interest of keeping legal costs down will they agree to a suspension of the Eviction Warrant while your complaint is being investigated. Put that in a letter and email it to both the solicitor and the lender.

Then of course you need to make those two applications which you may be able to do on one N244 Form. Ask Shelter for advice on how to do that.