Hi Gillian

There is little your trustee could do in the circumstances you describle.

If the keys were handed back and the house repossessed and sold, any shortfall would be a claim in the trust deed. The dividend would be less, but that would have no bearing on matters.

Mark

Hi Mark,

Thanks so much for the reply. The trustee stated last time we asked that if we handed back in the keys to the house my husband could get in alot of trouble and he would sign off as his trustee leaving my husband with all his debts again and open to being chased for them. This was all made clear to him over the telephone by the assistant at the firm he called after he received the letter confirming that they would not be agreeable for a sale to happen. I will post a copy of the original letter in 2 ticks.

Here is the original letter he received back when he first enquired:

I note that you have enquired with your mortgage company, Nram, about selling your home. I can advise that as there is a shortfall due to Nram, I would not be agreeable to you selling your home until you are discharged from your trust deed.

As your trust deed will already have to be extended to collect your contribution payments and the equity amount from your vehicle, I am not agreeable to you incurring further debt which you cannot afford to repay.

It is in your best interest to continue with your trust deed until you are discharged. When your trust deed has come to a conclusion, you will be in a posiiton to sell your property and repay the shortfall to Nram.

I note from your letter that you are not able to provide details of a third party who is available to reccomence the payments towards your equity in your vehicle. I can advise that the only option may be to sell your vehicle and refund you a suitable amount from the sale proceeds to purchase another vehicle as the extension of the trust deed by 2 years to collect the sum of £5038 will result in a smaller dividend being paid to your creditors.

If you have any further questions please call the office."

My husband did call the office and was told that his trust deed will be extended for 2yrs to cover the costs of the car and that they would be watching very closesly to see if he could make higher payments to pay the car part off quicker. Atm his payments are up from £150 to £201 per month which we can barely afford (they know this, we told them) but if we were moved in to a council house then we would be paying far less rent than we do on the mortgage now (about £270 month) so it would free up spare income to pay for the car part of the trust teed meaning the trust deed could end alot quicker but they wont hear of that, the assistant just said he would be discharged if we went against their wishes :/

Hi gillian

I am very very surprised at the content of the letter. The position regarding the house is as stated in the previous post and I see no reason legitimate reason for the stance. They are no doubt using the voluntary action element of giving up the property, however in the circumstances described, i dont think this is justified.

I have a number of trust deeds where the property was surrendered which did not and wont stop the case proceeding as normal.

Mark

That is good to know, info we can arm ourselves with when we approach them again. Would you recommend we contact the trustee again and re-iterate the state of disrepair that the house is in and that we will be going ahead with volunary surrender at some point hopefully in the next 6mths if the council are able to rehouse us?

Hi Gillian

Yes, I would certainly approach them. If you asked them for a 6 month payment break to fix the damp problem, do you think they would agree. I think not.

Mark

Hi Mark, no I definately don't think they would allow that, they already upped his payment from 150 to 201 per month knowing that we couldn't afford it and that we had 2 new babies this year (twins!). They knew that we would have to tweak the income and expenditure to suit the money left coming out at £201 so we could carry on with the trust deed so highly unlikely they would allow any payment breaks regardless of the reason.

The house was valued at 90k at the start of the td but imo and another estate agent we knows opinion that valuation was totally out the box, he reckoned the house was worth more like 75 on the open market. Either way the mortgage was still 96 1/2k so in negative equity. Even at that the trustee is not "allowing" us to sell even though they think they neg equity is only a few thousand, never mind the many thousands it actually is.

It prob seems like we just want to be free of everything and to a certain extent that is true, we took on this house without really having a clue how much needed done to it and we already spent at least 30k modernising it and now to be told we need to find at least another 20k it's just heartbreaking, we dont love the house anymore, in fact we dont even like it anymore. The fact that the trustee is suggesting to us that we stay put and sell up after the trust deed an put ourtselves in to more debt seems crazy to me though when it can be dealt with now and considering that the mortgage provider is being really helpful it's sad that the trustee want to put a stop to it all for us.

From a legal standpoint if we approach the trustee again and they still tell us they are not agreeable and we do it anyway, what would happen then? Would they sign off as his trustee and leave him to deal with all the debt again?

It certainly sounds like this is what they are suggesting they will do. I take it your husband signed his trust deed after 1st April 2008? If not then they aren't able to do this in any case.

Their letter does seem very strange indeed - I'm not sure the person that wrote it really knows what they are talking about to be honest!

Anyway, your choices are:
1) Comply with the trustee, finish the trust deed and then sell/surrender the house. NRAM cannot pursue your husband for any shortfall as you have been through a trust deed and rather than make a claim they decided to rely on their security instead - once this has been realised then you have no further obligation to them.
2) Surrender the property now. Your husband's trustee may end the trust deed but refuse his discharge due to non-compliance and your husband could apply for sequestration instead.

Hi Kevin, yes his trust deed was signed in Aug 2009 and originally due to be discharged in Sept 2012 but as I had to stop making payments for the car the trust deed will now be extended by 2yrs but they want him to up the payments as there is £5038 due on the car and he only pays £201 a month so 2yrs wouldn't cover the full amount.

I believe the letter was wtritten by the assistant at Campbell Dallas and then signed by the trustee, David K Hunter. Can't be 100% sure as it is signed by him but it was the assistant we have been in contact with the whole time, my husband has never spoken directly or indirectly to David K Hunter.

I'm not sure how NR wouldn't be able to pursue the money? The letter we got said we should wait until the trust deed finishes and then sell the house and arrange to pay back NR the shortfall?

I don't think in any case we would be able to go on living here with the damp and mould for another 3yrs as my husbands trust deed will still have almost 3yrs to run so we would like to be out realistically in the next 6mths or so. If he were to apply for sequestration would he do that by the new certificate of sequestration route? Does your company deal with that Kevin? We understand that my husband would still have to make payments for another 3yrs but he would be doing that anyway and this way we would get to get out of this house and not incur further debts.

We are kind of scraed to approach his trustee again as they are majorly unhelpful and can't ever seem to explain things to us properly, they just say no and that's kind of it. Would we be safe enough to wait until we are actually offered a house with the council and ready to hand the keys in to NR before we contact the trustee again or are we obliged to give them prior warning of what we are going to do?

Thanks

Hi Gillian

I think if you were to hand the keys back and walk away, then the house would be repossessed, sold and any shortfall become a claim in the Trust Deed. This would decrease the dividend to creditors, however I do not think these are grounds for seeking discharge.

If they were to seek discharge, your husband could look at sequestration as an option as you would not have the house to deal with.

The Trustee could also remain in office, collect the agreed payments and then discharge the case at the end. This would be the normal approach.

Mark

Thanks Mark, hopefully they would go along with the normal approach but im afraid with this company nothing seems to be straightforward so I wont hold out for it to be honest.

If the house were to be repossesed would my husband need to go to court or anything like that? Would there be any outward signs it had been repossesed? We live in a small village so dont want notices in the windows ect.

Also would it be easy enough for him to go bankrupt if the trustee did discharge him?

Sorry, so many questions!

Hi Gillian

No problem. NRAM have 2 options, they can go through the court and get an order or your trustee can sign a waiver to this. There are no implications in signing this and it takes away the necessity to go through the court process.

there is no need to go to court and it wont appear in the papers or anything like that.

Regards

Mark

Oh that's great to know, really worried that everyone would know we have been repossesed (albeit voluntarily. Is it relatively easy for my husband to go bankrupt then if the trustee discharges themselves as I believe this is exactly what they would do.

Hi gillianr2

Yes, sequestration is a relatively straight forward process. Ths may be the best option, as it sounds as though you are really struggling with your payments, although this may not be the case if you are re-housed.If you walk away, the shortfall will fall into the Trust Deed. It would appear that your Trustee seems to be making this more difficult than it neds to be.
Your concern about people knowing about your house being repossessed is very common, but don't worry - there are no posters put in the window!!