Hello gillianr2.

Obviously wherever possible a mortgage payment should be fully prioritised over and above other non-priority obligations.

If it is simply impossible to pay the mortgage in full then I'd suggest that you:

1 - Pay as much as you possibly can.
2 - Maintain good lines of communication and co-operation with NRAM.

Obviously there are no guarantees that this will be effective given that substantial arrears have built up, but I hope that it helps to buy you some time.

You've mentioned in other posts about the timeframe for getting into a rented house. The wheels of the repossession move very slowly in my experience (a year, and counting, in my case) so if it does end up going down that route you won't get evicted any time soon. Hopefully though they will see sense and take what you can afford at the moment to stop any action at all.

Thanks for that. Nram told my husband he would have 15 days to pay the Nov payment, if he doesn't then he will be given a further 10days before repossesion procedures begin and then yo are given 21 days to leave so that seems pretty quick to me and worrying.

Would Nram be able to accept less than the interest only payment though or would we at least have to be able to pay that?

Hi gillianr2.

I'm not sure anyone can answer that question other than NRAM.

With significant mortgage arrears currently you are vulnerable to NRAM starting repossession procedures, and especially so if the arrears build up further.

I really do feel for gillianr2 who seems to have had so many issues to address as reflected in her many posts on varying financial aspects of her life but still has the time and is able to offer advice to others.

:/ not quite sure if that's meant as a compliment or not tbh.

I think you should take it as a compliment gillianr2! I was thinking exactly the same as Charlie1958. You commented on my post that you think I'm going thru the mill - absolutely nothing compared to you sweetheart! At least my home is safe and for that I'm truly thankful. I feel for you and I really hope it all works out for you. Is it yourself that has major problems with damp in your home?

Gillian.....

Firstly regarding your Points, every Registered Social Landlord allocate points differently so I can't really answer your question, but I tend to think your points are very low. For example for a decent offer of housing in Glasgow your looking at 250+ points.

In your case I'd not get to hung up regarding points, I'd be more concerned about priority, as I said before as a simple waiting list case as you are right now there is virtually no chance of an offer. But once your mortgage leader starts action to repossess your house.

At this point I have to say Nram are talking mince, to repossess your house they must go through the legal process and a Sheriff will ultimately decide if you are to loss your house, and take it from me that ain't a quick process. Even when a Sheriff does grant repossession you have you are given Notice, at this point you should already have been in touch with your local council to have your priority changed to potentially Homeless Or Homeless, which means the Council are duty bound to rehouse you under the Housing Scotland.....

My only world of caution will be and you will not like it one bit... Is that you will need to more flexible in the areas you wish to be rehoused in you cannot dig your feet in and say am only prepared to take one area, as if you do they can in extreme cases take your homeless priority off and and advise you to seek your own accommodation..

Phew........

Thanks Pammy and Charlie then, that means alot actually. I dont feel it's rigt to just come on looking for help but not offer any support to others even though most of the time i dont know what im talking about lol!! Yes my house has major damp and mould, environmental health are hoping to come out on Fri afternoon but we are going to see a private rent then so hoping we can fix the 2 for different times to suit. I called the council today too and she said it was be unlikely for us to be rehoused in 6mths but you never know hence we are going to see this private rent. Trying to be hopeful but there are credit checks which we will fail so it's doubtful we can private rent.

Gillian...

Again I advise caution on the private rented accommodation, if you do take it you will almost certainly lose any priority for rehousing as you will now be deemed suitably Housed....

Thanks porcupine. I called the council yest and spoke with ther lady who allocates the houses in my area, she was really great. She said the same as you and said not to worry so much about the points. Basically houses in my area are not in great demand but we could go on to the homeless list now if we wanted to but we would need to broaden our areas (as you said). She said in those instances they would try to get us a house within 6mths but usually it is alot quicker than that say a couple of months but we would need to accept the first house offered unless we thought it unreasonable, but they wouldn't offer us something unreasonable anyway. I explained we would rather stick to this area if possible so she said that in our area as it stands it's hard to try and give a timescale and she didn't wnat to get our hopes up but we would be looking at 6mths+ prob (she reckoned around (5/8mths would be normal for house with 3 bedrooms) with where we stand priority wise. She said she was glad I called as she now knows all the background and it will all get taken in to consideration when allocating. She said the good thing at the moment is the majority of people on the list need a 1 or 2 bedroom and we need a 3. The thing that worries me really how long it will take to get a council house, it's a case of how long is a piece of string really isn't it if we def want to stay in this area? It could be within a few months or alot longer and all the time we are struggling with the mortgage and have the threat of repossesion hanging over our heads. The last thing we want to do is be forced on to the homeless list as we are resolute we want to stay in this area. Therefore we need to decide, do we try and struggle on with the mortgage and deal with the damp/mould ect for possibly 8mths or do we try and just forget about council and go for privcate rent which lets face it costs double council (althogh still cheaper than our mortgage) and we might not even pass the checks to get it anyway. The private hosue we are going to see is looking for someone very long term which is a good thing but it's done through an agent so they will carry out credit checks ect so we are worried about that as we know we wouldn't pass them.

Hi gillianr2

I think porcupine has been excellent with all her advice on housing, As she has said, once you are suitably housed, the council will not want to know you, therefore if you go for private rent, make sure it is what you want and affordable. The lady at the housing sounds very helpful, so that is good. As far as repossession goes, it is usually 6 months minimum, but normally about 10-12 months. No way can NRAM get you out as quick as they say, that is just to frighten you....and they were successful! I have a client at the moment who is only paying £50 a month to NRAM, and they have accepted that. Fill out the I&E and send it to them showing what you can realistically afford. Nothing will happen before you see the money adviser in January.

Hi Shone,

Totally agree, Porcupines advice has been fantastic, such a great help. The private rent house costs slightly less than we pay on the mortgage now but I checked with the government webiste aswell as our local council and the enititledto website and all three came back that we would be entitled to some housing benefit which would bring the rent down by £200 a month. I think i've said before that we are struggling with the £201 payments to the trust deed but i've done an income and expendiutre sheet for if we moved in to this private rent and it comes out that we would actually be able to pay about £100 extra on to the trust deed so we could pay around £275 a month to the trustee if they decided to carry on with the trust deed which could mean the two year extension could be shortened a bit so that would be good.

I had a look at the conditions of rent with the letting agency (I wont mention them incase im not allowed to) but it basically says they will carry out all or some of the following checks which includes checking with previous landlords for the past 3yrs, cheking with employer and credit checks. We will def fail the credit check and we dont have any landlords so would they check with northern rock? The agent also alsed for our position is now so I said mortgaged property so she wanted to know how quickly we could "sell" our home. I was worried about saying anything so I just said pretty quickly, how honest do I need to be with them about voluntary repossesion? We will obv tell them about the trust deed though. Also will the last decision lie with the agent or with the landlord as we know the house has lain empty for over 6mths and the landlord is desperate for someone to either buy or take a long term tenancy agreement and ling term is what we are looking for.

That's really good to know about Nram as we were so worried they would move things really quickly so that we wouldn't have a chance to find anywhere else if this rental doesn't take us then we will have to wait for council and that looks to be at least 6mths away.

We haven't heard anything back from the trustee yet about what they will do when we surrender the house but we expected that, it normally takes them 2/3wks to respond to any queries and usually only after alot of prompting.

I also menat to aks what the process is for surrending the house? Nram said that they would arrange for my husband to take the keys to a lawyer but forst he would need to sign something that stated if there is a short fall then he will be responsible for the shortfall but my husband said he is in a trust deed and the shortfall would go in to that but Nram said he cant surrender the property until he signs this document?

Thanks