My husband and I are going to court on 9th July to declare bankruptsy. I realised that we were in deep waters after we bought our house from our housing association last Sept. I've had it valued and it's tentatively £5k above our mortgage. We bought the house thinking to get on the housing ladder would be a good thing. I am not so sure now and because we don't live in such a good area I'd really like to move away. Someone has said that we should tell the judge we think we were missold our mortgage (the self cert says my husband earns almost 2x what he really does - only found out after mortgage taken)and ask them to take the house from us. Can this happen this way?
Obviously worried that we may actually be in a negative equity situation (a house across the road has just been offered exactly what our mortgage is). Will our estate agent valuation be used by OR or will they come and value themselves. Also because housing association we have 4 years of having to pay the housing assoc a declining percentage over time of sale value. Will this still apply if the OR takes the house? Can someone advise please? Many thanks
I'm not 100% sure on what you are looking to do here. Are you looking to give the house up or do you want to stay? If you want to stay you can get a couple of valuations yourself when you go BR, may i suggest that you do this within the first two months of your BR as it gets it out of the way then . If you don’t do this the Official Receiver has three years to register his interest in it and may authorise a drive round valuation. However if you would prefer to give the house up and find alternative accommodation may i recommend that you start looking for somewhere else to live now as you will be able to include any debts that you have within your house into your Bankruptcy. You will need to be pretty quick on this though as you will find it quite difficult to find rented accommodation after you have gone BR as agents tend to do a credit search on new tenants. Obviously you can also look at council accommodation but this may be quite difficult until you have actually become homeless.
Hi Kimmy loads has given good advice. With only £5k equity based on an estate agent valuation, I would say a drive by valuation would come in lower. If you are both declaring bankruptcy you would need to get a third party to buy the 'beneficial interest' if you wish to stay in the house. In cases of negative equity the OR will require the payment of £1 plus their conveyancing costs of around £250. Any debt owing to the HA on bankrutpcy, so this would include any discount given on the property, would be a provable debt in the bankruptcy.
Suzanne Stocker Bankruptcy Manager Jones Giles Ltd
Thank you for your answers to follow on a few more questions what happens if we don't get anyone to buy back the beneficial interest in our house? Do we have to leave within a year? What do people do if they have to rent post bankruptsy and have bad credit on their file - am worried now that we may have problems finding somewhere to rent if we try and leave the house. Also could the judge force us to keep the house if they think there's negative equity Can they come back near the end of 3 yrs and decide prices have gone up and then take the house - I don't want to be stuck here for 3 more years to then have to leave - I'd rather go now.
sorry to go on - but loads did you mean that if we put the house into the bankruptsy the mortgage would be totally cancelled whether it sold for less or more than what our mortgage is?
when we moved to rented property we had trouble finding someone to take us on, and had to find 6 months rent and a deposit up front before the agent would touch us, as luck had it my daughter lent us the money out of her wedding fund and we then paid her back when the house money came through. i dont know what we would of done otherwise
In bankruptcy any shortfall would go into the estate on the sale of the property. Or you could hand the property back for voluntary repossession. If the house is not sold or tranferred the OR can go back within 3yrs and deal with any equity that may have accrued up to then. Many people have found that if they rent privately, rather than through an agent who do credit checks, they have more success.
Suzanne Stocker Bankruptcy Manager Jones Giles Ltd
realised we were in deep waters after buying house
Posted - 24 June 2008 : 01:50:51
