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Hi guys,
I’m after some advise if possible.
Back in early 2007 when I was young and stupid I bought a property. At this point mortgage companies were still throwing money at people, I had some really bad advice, took out a 100% interest only mortgage on a 5 year fixed rate. The advice being, ‘in 5 years you’ll be able to remortgage and due to the equity built into your property you’ll be able to move onto a repayment mortgage but you monthly payments would be the same’.
Well, we all know what happened to the market in late 2007 ??????????????
As I was on a fixed rate until 2012 no big deal mortgage wise. However in late 2008 I took out a secured loan against the property with welcome finance to buy a new car and consolidate some credit card debts and a bank loan for £10k.
March 2012 came despite lots of searching no one would remortgage the property unless I had 40% equity, at this point I was on -40% equity, my existing mortgage lender were unwilling to help or reduce the monthly payments which were due to double, so the inevitable happened, the property was repossessed. Until this point no mortgage or loan payments were missed.
Now, something I’m not proud of, and looking back I wish I’d taken a different course of action, I literally run away from all of it. I was young, naïve and didn’t fully understand the implications of what I was doing.
10 years later, I’m in a much better financial position. Despite an unfair CCJ applied by a utility company not relating to the repossessed property (that’s a story for another day) which has been fulfilled and off my credit report, my credit history is pretty much squeaky clean since the repo.
In these 10 years, I’ve not heard a peep from either the mortgage lender for the £35k ish mortgage shortfall or welcome finance. Bearing in mind I’ve lived at the same address for 8 years until very recently with various credit agreements now to my name, I can’t imagine it would be hard to find my address.
A few days ago via redirection, I received a letter from Welcome, via Cabot who I assume they sold the debt to when they went bust, via Ruthbridge who I assume Cabot have now sold the debt to. According to the letter the debt is just under £9k and they wish to speak to me to set up a payment plan or for a F&F agreement.
From the hours of reading that I’ve done, as this debt was effectively a second mortgage in legal terms, it’s 12 years until it’s statute barred for the capital. However, other information I’ve gleaned over the last few days, if part of UK finance they agree they would contact you within 6 years of the repossession to advise you they would be chasing the shortfall. Would this apply to a secured loan? I also cannot find anywhere if Welcome were part of that, but the company that bought them out, Target Group are, would this agreement still apply?
Other trails of thought are:
Go for the ‘prove it’ route. All this time on I would be hoping that after reading how poor welcome were with their paperwork that all the information hasn’t been passed down twice.
Go down the CCA route. Again, I would be hoping the paperwork hasn’t been sent down the chain, but using this route would restart the SB clock? With just two years left before it is SB I really don’t want to restart it.
Since this faux pas I’ve been so religious with my finances and have worked and saved really hard to finally buy a house this year and my concern is this will now progress to a CCJ which will ruin my chances of getting a mortgage for another 6 years. I can’t let it get to that and will make a F&F settlement figure, but for obvious reasons, I feel I need to explore the unenforceable route.
Sorry for the essay, and thanks for taking time to read it
I’m after some advise if possible.
Back in early 2007 when I was young and stupid I bought a property. At this point mortgage companies were still throwing money at people, I had some really bad advice, took out a 100% interest only mortgage on a 5 year fixed rate. The advice being, ‘in 5 years you’ll be able to remortgage and due to the equity built into your property you’ll be able to move onto a repayment mortgage but you monthly payments would be the same’.
Well, we all know what happened to the market in late 2007 ??????????????
As I was on a fixed rate until 2012 no big deal mortgage wise. However in late 2008 I took out a secured loan against the property with welcome finance to buy a new car and consolidate some credit card debts and a bank loan for £10k.
March 2012 came despite lots of searching no one would remortgage the property unless I had 40% equity, at this point I was on -40% equity, my existing mortgage lender were unwilling to help or reduce the monthly payments which were due to double, so the inevitable happened, the property was repossessed. Until this point no mortgage or loan payments were missed.
Now, something I’m not proud of, and looking back I wish I’d taken a different course of action, I literally run away from all of it. I was young, naïve and didn’t fully understand the implications of what I was doing.
10 years later, I’m in a much better financial position. Despite an unfair CCJ applied by a utility company not relating to the repossessed property (that’s a story for another day) which has been fulfilled and off my credit report, my credit history is pretty much squeaky clean since the repo.
In these 10 years, I’ve not heard a peep from either the mortgage lender for the £35k ish mortgage shortfall or welcome finance. Bearing in mind I’ve lived at the same address for 8 years until very recently with various credit agreements now to my name, I can’t imagine it would be hard to find my address.
A few days ago via redirection, I received a letter from Welcome, via Cabot who I assume they sold the debt to when they went bust, via Ruthbridge who I assume Cabot have now sold the debt to. According to the letter the debt is just under £9k and they wish to speak to me to set up a payment plan or for a F&F agreement.
From the hours of reading that I’ve done, as this debt was effectively a second mortgage in legal terms, it’s 12 years until it’s statute barred for the capital. However, other information I’ve gleaned over the last few days, if part of UK finance they agree they would contact you within 6 years of the repossession to advise you they would be chasing the shortfall. Would this apply to a secured loan? I also cannot find anywhere if Welcome were part of that, but the company that bought them out, Target Group are, would this agreement still apply?
Other trails of thought are:
Go for the ‘prove it’ route. All this time on I would be hoping that after reading how poor welcome were with their paperwork that all the information hasn’t been passed down twice.
Go down the CCA route. Again, I would be hoping the paperwork hasn’t been sent down the chain, but using this route would restart the SB clock? With just two years left before it is SB I really don’t want to restart it.
Since this faux pas I’ve been so religious with my finances and have worked and saved really hard to finally buy a house this year and my concern is this will now progress to a CCJ which will ruin my chances of getting a mortgage for another 6 years. I can’t let it get to that and will make a F&F settlement figure, but for obvious reasons, I feel I need to explore the unenforceable route.
Sorry for the essay, and thanks for taking time to read it
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