Asked to pay shortfall

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Repossession : One Thread

I wonder if anyone can give me some advice? I am being chased for a mortgage shortfall after 5years. The lender was Nationwide but they have only contacted via a solicitor. When we were repossesed in 1997 we were informed by the lenders solicitor that we would not be hearing from them again as we had an indemnity policy and that if there was any shortfall on our mortgage it would be covered by the insurance policy. He said if anything the insurers would contact us with regards to claiming the debt.

We have now started to recieve letters from a solicitor requesting payment of #17 500.

Our original mortgage was for #38 850 the house was sold for #37 500 apart from estate agents fees house clearance etc of about #1 500 the rest is made up of interest.

How do we stand ?

We did contact the solictor once and he informed us that if we ere to make an offer of #5000 the lender would be quite happy to accept this in lieu of our debt.

We have not got that amount of money so he asked if we were in a position to borrow it. My husband just laughed!!

My husband seems to think it might be one of those cases where a company have bought the debt. Could this be right or how do we find out?

The letters always come through with without predujice written on them what does this mean?

We have recieved a letter today stating that the next step will be taken through the law courts, so i am really beginning to panic, especially as i have a small family to think of.

We are living in rented accomidation so they cannot touch the house but can they take anything else?

I would be really grateful for any advice anyone can give me, either through this page or e-mail.

I hgave briefly read through some of the other enteries on this page and at first we were wondering how they managed to contact us after such a long time. I realised that the first letter came shortly after applying for a credit card.

Also please can you give me details of your home page.

Many thanks.

-- (ninajwhite@hotmail.com), November 21, 2001

Answers

We are in a similar position to you. My husbands house was repo'd in 1998 and he too had a Mortgage Indemnity Guarantee (MIG). Firstly you need to ask for all documents to substantiate their claim. On this site somewhere is a list of all the things you should be asking for - look under Repossession Do's and Dont's. You will find that they try very hard NOT to give you any information at all. You can also send them a Subject Access Rights Notice to see what that turns up. There is a blank letter you can use for this on this site. Lastly keep reading this site - it makes you realise you are not alone!

-- Kate (katejones6@katejones.freeserve.co.uk), November 22, 2001.

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