Secured Loan problems

[Delta]

Ok I have a mortgage (currently a little bit in arrears, but working on that)

I also have a secured loan for 5k, now the story behind this loan...

Got an unsolicted mailer about loans, hummm that looks good, could do with a bit of help and so applied for 3k. Got all the paperwork back and they offered me a chioce of 3k, 5k or 8k. Eventually went for the 5k over 5 years.

Got a phonecall from them, at the time I worked at home for a company assembling stuff, and didn't get a set amount of work each week and it was piece work, now the guy from the loan company said that they couldn't offer me the loan because of this fluctuating income, so I said well ok then, never mind....but him not being one to want to lose a sale pushed ahead doing it based on my tax credits of £140 per week.

So the loan goes ahead, a few months later I lose my job, then start the Kleeneze, but doing not too bad. Then the orders got a bit slow and I was living on my tax credits. So I sent them a letter asking them if the could let me have a month off paying while I sorted myself out.

The best offer that I got was to split the payment over 3 months, felt harassed into agreeing this, and really struggled, so the payment fell somewhat behind.

Then I started getting phone calls, they were horrible to me, telling me that I had to get a proper job, get another job, not to pay my gas and electric as they wouldn't cut me off etc etc.

Anyway, I made some payments, then they had the good grace to tell me that £50 a month was being added to the account for admin purposes!

Enough was enough, I told them not to phone, to write to me, the snotty git said ok.

Next I heard was a letter from their solicitors telling me that they were taking me to court for repossession! According to them the arrears were about £450

Got the court date, and 2 weeks before we were due at court I got their court bundle thing, witness statments etc etc. Interesting bit was that the loan company said that they 'DIDN'T KNOW MY EMPLOYMENT STATUS' a blatent lie! Now this showed arrears of £250. I went the the bank and made a payment of £100 the week before the court hearing.

Turned up at court, spoke to the guy that was the freelance solicitor for them, agreed to pay £50 per week, this covered the montly payment and about £70 per month towards the arrears.

So in before the judge we go, and he said that because, according to their figures I was less than two months in arrears he was adjourning the case until November, and would stirke out in Nov unless anything major happened in the mean time. He also told me to carry on with the agreement and clear the arrears.

Now obvioulsy the solicitors are not happy about this, and have managed to get the case reinstated, and I go to court again on Wednesday this coming week. I have been dutifully paying the £50 a week, and this is all that I can afford. They have the arrears at about £400 again.

This morning (23/6) I get their court bundle, dated 21/6.......so that is actually only 6 days before the hearing.....I thought I had to be 14 days before?

So my questions are....
1. does this evidence that they are going to rely on have to come to me 2 weeks before or are the ok with it only comming today?
2. if an arangement is already in place, agreed with them anf the judge then why are they taking this back to court? I can only assume that they are doing this cos they got their figure wrong initially.
3. is there anything that I can do about the descrepancy in figures at the first hearing? cos this just looks like they are trying to cover their asses?
4. I assume that I am looking at a suspended possession order? (unless I can come up with the money prior to Wednesday!)

And my next question is the £50 per month admin charge on the account...the total for these charges is currently at 1k, do these constitute penalty charges? and if so do you think I should try and get them removed or leave it a bit longer till more of the loan is cleared up? (there is no way that I can afford to clear the loan, and I really don't want to have to sell my house just to get rid of them)

Ok sorry for such a long one, hope someone can help me out
Ta muchly

[Paradox]

I'm not sure on the other stuff Delta, but I'd say the charges were definately penalty charges!

Sorry can't help on the rest of the stuff.

Matt

[Guest]

So my questions are....
1. does this evidence that they are going to rely on have to come to me 2 weeks before or are the ok with it only comming today? Yes it should, but not much will be or indeed can be done about this. Forget it and concentrate on things you can change.
2. if an arangement is already in place, agreed with them anf the judge then why are they taking this back to court? I can only assume that they are doing this cos they got their figure wrong initially. You should not need to assume anything, it should be very clear in their particulars of claim why they are doing this, on what grounds and for how much etc. Read their claim again and find out what they are actually claiming and why.
3. is there anything that I can do about the descrepancy in figures at the first hearing? cos this just looks like they are trying to cover their asses? Explain what you mean here - they changed the arrears from £450 to £250 and you want to complain about it?
4. I assume that I am looking at a suspended possession order? (unless I can come up with the money prior to Wednesday!) Probably yes, but not necessarily, if the prior judge adjourned the case until November, I would want to know why you are being sued again - have you fallen behind or failed to stick to the arrangement?

And my next question is the £50 per month admin charge on the account...the total for these charges is currently at 1k, do these constitute penalty charges? YES! And you should claim them all back
and if so do you think I should try and get them removed or leave it a bit longer till more of the loan is cleared up? (there is no way that I can afford to clear the loan, and I really don't want to have to sell my house just to get rid of them)

Ok sorry for such a long one, hope someone can help me out
Ta muchly

As your arrears are relatively small in relation to the value of your house (working on the assumption here that your house is worth many times more than £1000) the likelihood of possession being granted is so close to nothing it is almost laughable. However, they may well get a suspended possession order unless you can dissuade them.

You could submit a counter claim for the charges and ask for the case to be stayed until they have provided you with the information you need to raise your counter claim. This could be a good tactical move for you as it will delay the court date by which time you might be able to pay off the arrears. Alternatively it may make the loan company back off altogether if they feel they are going to be forced to reveal their costs in court in order to pursue you for these arrears.

If all the charges were removed, what would be the total arrears on the account?

[Delta]

Ok here's the info.

Loan amount £5000
Broker fee? £500
Legal fee £120
Total 5620

60 payments of £128.45

Loan paperwork signed 15 February 2005.

Figures according to the solicitors paperwork

Total amount to pay the mortgage off as at 29/04/07 £5909.80
14/03/07 arrears apparently are £439.50
24/04/07 arrears apparenty are £267.95 (this was the figure they went to court with, I paid £100 towards that and took it below 2 missed payments according to their figures)

Court date was 08/05/07

11/05/07 they decided to reissue for court, arrears then were apparently £596.40

21/06/07
paperwork from solicitors states
arrears are £464.85
outstanding balance £5849.52

Now according to the last bit of paperwork I got from the lender
dated 8/6/07
Arrears are 514.85
collection costs 950.00legal costs to date 693.50

and they are aksing me to phone them to discuss the account.

What confused me was that the sols said one figure, and turned up at court with a much lower figure, which was what made the judge adjourn the case.

They have then within days come back with a higher figure (and more probably a truer one, so they are taking me back to court. Now if they cocked up then surely I can say something about that, its not fair to penalise me for their mistake.

And the collection costs are clocking up at a straight £50 per month, and for some reason there is £94 legal costs adminstered to the account in January this year, long before the solicitor got involved.

So if anyone can make any sense of all my ramblings above and give me some advice I sure would be very grateful.

Thanks

[Delta]

Oh and just to add, since the judgement in the first case, I have not missed one payment, in fact one week I actually over paid by £10.

[Guest]

Ok here's the info.

Loan amount £5000
Broker fee? £500
Legal fee £120
Total 5620

60 payments of £128.45

Loan paperwork signed 15 February 2005.

Figures according to the solicitors paperwork

Total amount to pay the mortgage off as at 29/04/07 £5909.80
14/03/07 arrears apparently are £439.50
24/04/07 arrears apparenty are £267.95 (this was the figure they went to court with, I paid £100 towards that and took it below 2 missed payments according to their figures) So you went to court owing just £167.95 in arrears?

Court date was 08/05/07

11/05/07 they decided to reissue for court, arrears then were apparently £596.40 How have they arrived at this figure if, on 08/05/07 the arrears were £167.95?

21/06/07
paperwork from solicitors states
arrears are £464.85 Should be £467.85 if you paid £128.45 - why the £3 discrepancy?
outstanding balance £5849.52

Now according to the last bit of paperwork I got from the lender
dated 8/6/07
Arrears are 514.85 Again, how is this made up?
collection costs 950.00legal costs to date 693.50

In Gomba Holdings (UK) Limited v Minories Finance Limited (No 2) [1972] 3 WLR 723 the Court held that the Defendant mortgagees had a contractual right to recover costs, charges and expenses incurred in the litigation on an indemnity basis.

They have a contractual right to add litigation costs and there is little scope to argue that the litigation costs are unreasonable or otherwise punitive - in particular if they can show that this is what they have been billed by their solicitors.

However, I would question costs of £950 for collection and £693.50 for solicitors.

and they are aksing me to phone them to discuss the account.

What confused me was that the sols said one figure, and turned up at court with a much lower figure, which was what made the judge adjourn the case.

They have then within days come back with a higher figure (and more probably a truer one, so they are taking me back to court. Now if they cocked up then surely I can say something about that, its not fair to penalise me for their mistake.

It might well be a mistake, but if it's the true figure then there is little you can do

And the collection costs are clocking up at a straight £50 per month, and for some reason there is £94 legal costs adminstered to the account in January this year, long before the solicitor got involved.

These are charges that you should claim back, in full.

So if anyone can make any sense of all my ramblings above and give me some advice I sure would be very grateful.

Thanks

I would still go for an adjournment of the case and then file a counterclaim - you will need to issue an SAR under the DPA unless you have all your statments, this will buy you time and as I stated previously, may make them back off.

[Delta]

Right, I have just sat and gone through the only statement of transactions that I have, and as of today I owe in arrears £464.28

The varience of figures are their figures that the solicitor was using, I do know that when it went to court the first time, the £267.95 was wrong, and I told the solicitor that when we had the chat to make an arangement before we went in, but he said that he had to go by the figure in front of him, so I didnt know where the £171 had disappeared to.

Their figure as of the 8/6 (the one from the lender) saying that the arrears are 514.85 is only 57p out. I have just gone through the statements and at one point last year I paid 57p too much. As I said I have just gone through it, marking every instalment due, and every payment, taking into account the times when the dd bounced etc, and the exact figure that I owe is 464.28, now bear in mind that I made a payment on Friday of £50, they obviously didnt count that as I hadnt made it at the time of their statement, so the figures pretty much add up, the only discrepancy is the 57p.

I have just worked out that if I can scrape together £210 on Monday then it takes the arrears down to less than 2 months, which would throw a spanner in their works again.

I am going to scrape together as much as I can, I currently have about £150, and I am going to get all this laid out on paper for the judge, and ask for an adjournment on the basis that I couldn't get a defence together in time due to the lateness of them sending their paperwork to me.

I am going to SAR them and ask for the full details, and also I want the breakdown of legal fees, the only sticking point I have is that if I decide to try and claim back the 'collection costs' then are they going to get ****ty with me and call in the loan in total?

[Guest]

Ok, you appear to have a really good grasp of all of this, which is excellent.

Do as you suggest that you will above and I think you will get the outcome you want at the hearing.

Regarding them calling in the loan, they will not be able to do this unless you default and they obtain a judgment against you - so don't worry about that.

[Delta]

Thank you ever so much for your help with this, I really do appreciate it.

[enaid]

Oh Delta that is a tricky one, i havent got a clue but you seem to have it in hand. All the very best this morning I know it's easy to say but they can't have what you haven't got can they?

[Fendyweather]

Delta,,,,,,,,,,,,, best of luck today hun. I dont know much on the secured loan front but you have my very very very best wishes hun. And if you need any of us to get out there and do research for ya on anything, just shout, Im not as busy now I have two wins under my belt. I dont mind doing any research on anything for ya hun. Sincerely.............. Fendy xxxxxx

fingers and toes crossed for ya today hun. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Delta]

Thanks guys, your support means a lot to me.

Just about to paddle my way to the bus stop, its hammering down here again! (gotta get the bus into town where the court is)

[jet_black]

Good Luck

[Tempty]

Delta hun, I wish you the very best of luck with this one!
does look like you have got your head around it all though

do let us know how it went won't you!!
I'll be thinking of you, crossing everything Godd luck hun

[Delta]

I'm back, din't quite go as i expected, but then the solicitor didn't know that there had already been an adjournment, and she was a right stroppy mare (must be pmt or summat), wanted to know why I hadn't been paying (er over £200 in the last month chuck!), said I wouldn't stand a chance getting the information on the legal fees and that I stood even less of a chance of getting the 'collection costs' back. Yea right, we shall see.


Anyway result was a suspended possession order, still got the pay £50 a week, this covers the monthly payment due and about £70 towards the arrears ecah month.

But then I expect to pay the arrears off as soon as I get my flippin cheque from NW, then I am going to make sure that I am a month in front and then I am gonna slap em for the charges!

Need to get a postal order tomorrow for the SAR, and will get one for my Crap One card while I am there. lets see how much them bastids owe me!