Sorry, correction. Should have read; Our mortgage is in both *our* names.

Hi BrianR

Could you provide a bit more info.

Is your wife making a contribution, is there equity in the house and did you meet with the firm or was this through a TV ad representative?

Mark

Thanks for the reply Mark. Yes my wife is making a £130 contribution per month, the same as me. We met with the firm, who took into account our tax credits (which goes through my wife's bank account). Yes there is equity which is to be realised after all contributions.

Hi BrianR.

We'd really just be speculating if we suggested a reason why your wife was judged to be suitable for a trust deed. I think you be in a better position to get to the bottom of this by asking those that gave you the advice.

I'm not sure it's advice you'd get from many firms.

Having said that, if the trust deeds are going OK, your wife and yourself each couldn't previously keep up with your debt payments, and you have equity in your home, you might conclude it to be best not to upset the applecart.

Yes I understand what you are saying tda and thank you for your reply, but like I said, based on advice in previous threads on here, I have no idea why the only option my wife was given was a trust deed. At the time we hadn't a clue about ptds and other options, we just wanted a way out. And yes we are responsible for our own debt, but we have been struggling. I have been paying her contributions when that shouldn't have been the case. One side of a ptd is to pay what you can afford, we have paid more than what we could afford. (ie borrowing to pay our monthlies)Before our ptd, obviously we were running at a loss, but regardless of how much of a loss, we haven't been better off at all. We paid the maximum before and still during. It's not about upsetting any applecart, I am just curious to know, yes I enter a ptd, but shouldn't my wife been declared bankrupt? Her debt was around half our total, give or take. She has never been in a position to pay. All I'm asking is am I right about bankruptcy and how would that have effected our home.
It was only recently when we received our statements, that we realised we had separate ptds. Before that, we thought it was a joint one. That was certainly the impression we got during our face to face with the firm. ie everything was treated as joint,- income and expenditure.

Hi BrianR.

You probably noticed the caveat in my last post "if the trust deeds are going OK".

I can tell from your latest comments that they aren't.

You mentioned that there is equity in your home. Would your home have been in jeopardy had your wife become bankrupt? Quite possibly; how much equity is there do you think?

Thanks again for your reply tda. We are actually near the end of the ptd. I am just frustrated that this was suppose to be a solution and it wasn't. As I said, it was only recently we realised it was two separate ptds and by reading through threads on here, I've just recently realised as well there were possibly and probably should have been other options. We have paid into this and after it will we still be in debt because of it. The losers in this are our creditors and ourselves, but the firm we went with will be £6000 better off. This is akin to divorce- the only winners are the lawyers. In this case, the only winners are the accountants. We will almost certainly lose our home, so we feel we have been strung along in the last few years. Our home has always been at risk and soon will be realised, so it makes no difference.The irony is what my wife has paid will be almost half of the equity they are looking for. It seems if this was done properly, then we would be coming up to being debt free. Our home down, but that is going to happen anyway.

I think the fact that you have had to borrow to pay your monthly bills speaks for itself in terms of whether the arrangements that were put in place were suitable or not, BrianR.

Absolutely Kevin. Where do I go from here now? Do I keep paying and keep my fingers crossed for a lotto win (that's the reason I've kept going, but I'm running out of time), or say to the firm, or God knows? I need another ptd to pay off my debt accrued from my ptd.

How long is left on the protected trust deeds BrianR?

How much new debt have you built up since your trust deeds commenced?

And is the new debt in just one name or between both of you?

There are only two payments each left on the ptd - hence the panic! Yes the debt is in both our names. Roughly around £3000 been built up. (The dreaded provident!) We have more or less been borrowing to cover my wife's payments.
I can appreciate the stupidity in doing this, but with three kids who love their home, I was desperate.

Apart from a bank job, any advice please?

From reading the information to date i would assess as follows:

a. the equity in the property at the time of signing the Trust Deeds was around £10K given you describe the amount paid by your wife £130 x 34 is the equivalent of nearly half the equity. Is that a true reflection? Furthermore what is the current level of equity? This will be important if you are looking for any future guidance. Albeit the government describe the market as having the "green shoots" of recovery personally from cases I am dealing with there has been little to no increases in value and maybe property is still valued less than 3 years ago. What you will have to do is weigh up continuing with the status quo to resolve the issue against other scenarios to which it is important to know not only the current value of the property but also what position you want to be in regarding that property. Not so much advice but further questions for you to consider before making any decisions.