Hi everyone,
Been reading through the forum over the past few days now and I must say that its comforting to know that there are plenty of people out there suffering the same as we are.
We have spoken to a number of IP experts over the past 2 weeks or so as we were not sure whether to consider BR or IVA, I have to say everyone seems to be compassionate, friendly and really helpful, which makes such a difference in a sensitive situation and felt that we should share our experience as our situation is not straight forward.
After much deliberation now we have decided that IVA is the best way to go as myself and wife own a very small, young limited company in which we have put our life and soul in to, we are in the automotive finance market, as im sure you will appreciate, its been hard enough to keep things going as it is, let alone with the added frustration that the credit crunch has to offer, we have seen our personal income tumble as the situation worsens.
Our mortgage is currently with Northern Rock and we have been with them for over 10 years now and been very happy, renewing our deal every 2 years with them like clockwork.
I must mention at this point BTW, that we have NEVER missed a payment for ANYTHING, not ever a credit card, but our situation is that serious now that we have to take action NOW and not be concerned in protecting our A1 credit history, its got that bad!.
The problem is that we are completly trapped, as we cannot transfer our mortgage to another lender as lenders will take us on, not because of our credit history, which as mentioned is excellent, but down to the loan to value [LTV] our house now represents which is 95% - 100% in todays market.
Our deal with NR has now come to an end [Sept 1st] and our payments have jumped form £1400 per month to a massive £2100 per month and this is just for interest only, this coupled with the downturn of business our company is now producing and its "double whammy" as we feel it from both sides!
We currently owe NR approx £338K and also have an additional £40k secured loan which has only recently been taken out this year to consolidate some other debts [car HP and other loan] we never thought that we wouldn't [a] get another deal or that lenders would not offer enough to settle existing mortgage.
We realize now that we are just fighting a loosing battle, Northern Rock just don't want to know! [what happened to appreciation for customer loyalty] they just say that they will start legal proceedings once we go 2 months in arrears, hang on a minute we haven't even missed a payment yet and I only called for advice, talk about "crack a peanut with a sledgehammer"!!!
I just get the feeling that they just want to "cash out" they are desperate to get money in to the pot to feed their hungry and demanding investors and also keep the government happy, even if it means loading potential neg equity shortfalls on to desperate people like ourselves, effectively compounding our problems!
Anyway, to complete our financial picture, our total unsecured debts are currently approx £60K [4 credit cards and 3 personal loans] if we do end up handing the keys back to NR, voluntary or not, what would happen to both the £40K Secured loan [the house probably wouldn't even pay back NR never mind the secured loan company] and the neg equity shortfall with NR, could and would this be added to our IVA?
Also, do we just not pay NR, the Direct Debit has now been cancelled or do we part pay them to keep them sweet for the time being?
Also, at what point do we commit to rented accommodation?, we have identified a couple of potential properties today, but is it too early?
Really sorry to waffle on here, but I wanted to share a more complete picture of our situation with you all, in order to make it a little easier for anyone to give advice or their opinion.
I would also be really interested to hear from anyone else experiencing a similar situation to ourselves, either at the moment or historically and if so what was their outcome??
Your help, advice and direction, would really be appreciated.
Thanks so Much in advance
M