www.iva.co.uk

Hello all,

I've just been watching This Morning on ITV and there was a specialist on there that said that if you are bankrupt that you DEFINATELY lose your house and Philip Schofield queried this, but he was adamant that this was the case - what would happen in the following scenario - I have a joint mortgage with my husband and he pays all the bills from his wage as he is the main earner. We owe about £200k on a mortgage, the house was worth about £230 but I would say now was about £200K - if he is happy to keep up the payments and I go bankrupt with my own personal debts would that mean we can keep the house?

Thanks

Hi chihuahua girl,

If your house is in negative equity, there is a good chance that you could keep it. I believe you have to get someone to buy the beneficial interest which works out at £1 plus court costs which I think are about £211. This will take it out of bankruptcy. Obviously, the mortgage payments will need to be kept up.

Why don't you give Paul Johns from Reviva a ring? He specialises in bankruptcy, and will give you some advice. His contact details can be found under the expert link on the left hand side of the page.

hi chi hope youre well
are you actually in negative equity at the mo or borderline ?

Hi Jan,

Thanks for your reply, I;ll give Reviva a call later on - do you think it would be a possibility for me to get my name taken off the mortgage and put solely in my husbands name as he has always paid all the mortgage? We're not in negative equity yet - just about breaking I think.

Hi fergiedoggy, nice to hear from you again.

See post to Jan above.

I am really not sure about taking your name off the mortgage - you would need to take advice about that.

I would think about having your house valued as well, you might be surprised to find that you could be in negative equity.

Jan is correct. Ultimately you do not own the house as it belongs to the mortgage company. You do own the equity and your husband can purchase your share for the current market value. Surveyors are downvaluing properties daily and no one is going to try to repossess your property at the levels you are talking about as there would unlikely be enough raised to clear the mortgage.

Take Jan's advice and immediately after the bankruptcy ensure that your husband deals with the equity issue as the property can be revalued before the end of three years and pursued if there is equity in it at this time. However, if the equity situation was addressed at the time there can be no coming back irrespective of any subsequent recovery in the property market.

I wonder who this specialist was on the TV? He will have put the fear of god into some people who think their house might be ok, but will now be having second thoughts, as he did chihuahua-girl!

ITV should vet their 'specialists' before they go on to ensure they know what they are talking about and are not scaremongerers.

Yes, I thought it was very irresponsible to say such a thing and like I said Philips Schofield queried what he had said as I think he thought alot of people would be upset too, but the bloke wasn't having any of it! I've just spoken to out mortgage company about my husband taking the mortgage over and the person I spoke to was very uphelpful - so I will try and call the bankruptcy professional that was mentioned earlier. Thanks again

good luck with the call chi.
dont forget we're all here for you x

I will be interested to see if this appears on IPlayer so that it can be seen exactly what was said, but I have copied and pasted below what is on the This Morning site from a chap called Andrew, apparently.

" Last resort: Declare bankruptcy
- This is the final resort when you are faced with debts that you just cannot pay.
- Can be a very traumatic thing to do, your house and all of your assets will be repossessed and it means that any future income will go to the receivers. It should only be considered as the final resort."

Regards.

There is no need to have your name removed from the mortgage and regardless it is highly unlikely that the mortgage company would agree anyway. Given that there is little or no equity there is always a chance of default and repossession and your mortgage company would be happier with two people to chase than just one. In addition, if your name is removed from the mortgage, affordability is affected which would also lessen the value of the mortgage company's security.

Size5 that is a disgrace. Where do they get these people from and why do they give them airtime on National TV?

How very misleading is that Size? And how very untrue!

There will be a lot of people out there now worried to death thinking they may only be left with the clothes they stand up in!

I'd love to know who this 'Andrew' is and where he gets his information from!