Potential House Repossession

Sun in Capri

Hi Guys,

I am not looking for legal advice but would be grateful if you could help with some information.

Friends have received a possession notice from their bank saying they are to attend court in September regarding possession of their house. There are steps that need to be taken with regard to them reponding to this notice etc which is fine. What I am wondering is what happens at these hearings? Has anyone had the misfortune of having had to go to one?

Kelly06

Hey I don't have any experience of this sorry, but do your friends have legal representation?

They should make contact with new beginning, I cant post a link sorry! A quick scan of their website and I found this though:

Subject to capacity, New Beginning endeavours to arrange representation for people facing repossession of their family homes who are unable to afford such representation.

In all other cases fees will apply.


Might be worth a try? best of luck to your friends who must be very worried at this difficult time.

Sun in Capri

Thank you very much Kelly. Yes they do have legal representation but from a human point of view I was wondering what they could expect at the hearing. They have a young family and are very worried. Due to the down turn they lost jobs in a certain industry quite a number of years ago now and despite every effort to negotiate with lender they have not been able to improve their situation. They have paid what they can but not enough.

I will look up New Beginnings.

lima

Sun in Capri wrote: »

Thank you very much Kelly. Yes they do have legal representation but from a human point of view I was wondering what they could expect at the hearing. They have a young family and are very worried. Due to the down turn they lost jobs in a certain industry quite a number of years ago now and despite every effort to negotiate with lender they have not been able to improve their situation. They have paid what they can but not enough.

I will look up New Beginnings.

If they are not engaging with their bank or paying anything then they can expect to get their property repossessed.

Maybe they can start investigating renting or what they are going to do once they lose their home

Mrs OBumble

If they have genuinely and regularly paid what they can (which I'd personally see as one third of whatever income they've had, including benefits), then it's highly unlikely that any Irish court will evict them.

But they do need to be engaging with New Beginning, and the bank, to work out a plan to go forward.

Sun in Capri

OP here. They have been engaging with or at least trying to engage with the bank and they have copies of all correspondence etc. They also have paid what they can and this means most of what income they have aside from what they need to feed themselves, but bank now going down the legal route even durng engagement. I will look up new beginnings and talk to my friends about this organisation. I know there is very little I can do but I want to support them as best I can during this worrying time.

Thanks for your input.

Sun in Capri

lima wrote: »

If they are not engaging with their bank or paying anything then they can expect to get their property repossessed.

Maybe they can start investigating renting or what they are going to do once they lose their home

As loosing their home is very likely I have encouraged them to start looking into a plan for alternative accomodation.

Cuddlesworth

What bank is it? Have they followed the MARP process(not applicable to some banks)?

Sun in Capri

Thank you cuddlesworth for that link - very useful.

househero

Even if they are lucky enough to keep the house. It would be wise to look for a house to rent, as a back up plan. Even if its just to avoid the inevitable horrible feeling if loosing the family home, knowing they have somewhere to carry on their lives.

How long have they lived in the house and what percent of the mortgage is outstanding?