I felt more surprise than shock when I read two stories in The Sunday Times published on 26th Oct 2008.
One unfortunate chap had his house repossessed after missing just one mortgage payment. His house was valued at £400,000, although it was going through at auction on behalf of the lender at £260,000.
It also transpires that credit card companies (credit card debt is classed as unsecured) can now apply for a charging order against your assets, i.e. your home, if you do not maintain regular payments, or make good missed monthly payments.
Strictly speaking, these procedures have always been available to lenders, although it does smack of the sinister that someone could lose their house with one mortgage payment in arrears, and now the credit card companies can in practice apply for an interest in your home, or indeed repossess it if they wish to.
If anything, this proves more than ever that everyone should be better informed about their legal standing with a loan of any description. A typical credit card or store card agreement advertised as unsecured is no such thing if a charging order can be placed on your property.
Be sure of this.
As the credit crunch deepens, banks and lenders will become more ruthless and unrealistic. Anyone with a loan, no matter how well your financial standing, is in debt, which if not repaid or serviced, could have horrible consequences.
My advice is to clear any borrowing that you have. For many that will be unlikely. If you remain in debt, start finding out where you stand with your lender by asking them what is the worse case scenario if you are unable to maintain full or partial repayments of your loan.
Equally, you can start being tough with your lender.
Did you know you can challenge most mortgage agreements if they commenced before Oct 2004?
Did you know you can challenge most loans regulated by the consumer credit act if they started before March 2007?
Well, you do now
One unfortunate chap had his house repossessed after missing just one mortgage payment. His house was valued at £400,000, although it was going through at auction on behalf of the lender at £260,000.
It also transpires that credit card companies (credit card debt is classed as unsecured) can now apply for a charging order against your assets, i.e. your home, if you do not maintain regular payments, or make good missed monthly payments.
Strictly speaking, these procedures have always been available to lenders, although it does smack of the sinister that someone could lose their house with one mortgage payment in arrears, and now the credit card companies can in practice apply for an interest in your home, or indeed repossess it if they wish to.
If anything, this proves more than ever that everyone should be better informed about their legal standing with a loan of any description. A typical credit card or store card agreement advertised as unsecured is no such thing if a charging order can be placed on your property.
Be sure of this.
As the credit crunch deepens, banks and lenders will become more ruthless and unrealistic. Anyone with a loan, no matter how well your financial standing, is in debt, which if not repaid or serviced, could have horrible consequences.
My advice is to clear any borrowing that you have. For many that will be unlikely. If you remain in debt, start finding out where you stand with your lender by asking them what is the worse case scenario if you are unable to maintain full or partial repayments of your loan.
Equally, you can start being tough with your lender.
Did you know you can challenge most mortgage agreements if they commenced before Oct 2004?
Did you know you can challenge most loans regulated by the consumer credit act if they started before March 2007?
Well, you do now
You can contact me through the help with debt website and I'll show how it's done (there's no fee, other than a £10 file retrieval charge payable to the lender)
When the going gets tough, the tough get going: that means you as well as the banks!
When the going gets tough, the tough get going: that means you as well as the banks!
No comments:
Post a Comment