How To Stop House Repossessions
The thought of your home being repossessed can be really scary, but all is not lost. You still have options to explore to stop house repossessions.
We explain the process of a house repossession below, including what happens, how long it takes and how to avoid repossession of your home.
If you're wanting to find out how to stop house repossessions, we've summarised the article very quickly for you below:
Our stop house repossessions page is quite long, so if you have a particular query, you can easily navigate to it using the questions below:
House repossession is a last resort, mortgage lenders are usually quite reluctant to do it as it costs them time and resources to take the property and sell it themselves, they would much rather you pay your mortgage and keep up with payments.
If you let your mortgage lender know you’re struggling, as soon as you possibly can they should be able to assist you in putting steps in place to get you back on track. Communication is key when it comes to keeping your home. Don’t ignore your lender. They will help you as long as they know the facts and this is by far the best way to stop house repossessions. Trying to pretend that your financial situation isn’t as bad as it is could result in legal action and you be subject to a house repossession.
It's the last thing that mortgage companies want to do, they want you to be able to pay your mortgage back. It depends on your lender, but typically your lender will take action after three payments, although some may postpone this longer if you are clear about the situation. Stop house repossessions or at least delaying them always ties back to your communication with the mortgage company, being completely open and honest about your situation and trying to work out a way of getting back in the green.
If you want to find out more about how many missed payments you can expect before repossession, we've gone into much more detail on this topic in our How Many Months Before A Repossession post.
As we've mentioned above lenders will typically take action after about three months of missing payments, but how long will it take before you actually lose your home? There's a lot of red tape for the lender to jump through before they can repossess your home but the truth is it depends on a variety of factors. The amount of time it takes to be repossessed will depend on the courts calendar and how fast it goes through, whether your lender has done everything to the letter of the law and your communication with your lender.
If you communicate and are clear with your lender it will buy you more time and help you, it can take anywhere from between 5 and 12 months, which is the time in which you should look into selling your house to stop house repossession, but once a court order is made that you have to move out you'll typically have between 28 and 56 days.
If you’re struggling to make your mortgage payments and are falling into arrears there are a few things you can do to stop house repossession, or at least delay it and buy yourself some extra time.
We've detailed some of the ways for you below:
Only seek legal advice to stop house repossessions from a professional, there are a lot of articles out there that you can find when researching that will provide you with mixed information, which could be more harmful than good. Although we are able to point you in the right direction, we would suggest that you do your research first in order to make the best decision for you.
You can get free advice on how to stop house repossessions or better manage your finance from several trust worthy places, here are some of the main services that can help you when you're in a tight situation:
If you've not managed to stop house repossession, after your home as been repossessed it doesn't neccesarily mean you're out of the woods, which is why it's really important to sell your own house whilst you still have control.
If the repossession goes through your lender will look to sell the property and recoup their loses on the mortgage, they will try and sell the property which they typically do by auction. In doing so they will incur legal fees, auction fees & lose money over the duration of the sale, all of which you will be liable to cover, and the amount of this can seriously rack up.
This can sometimes be covered by the equity you have in the property or if property prices have increased and they get a good price for it, but ultimately you need to repay what you owe the lender.
If you are in control of your own sale, it means that you won't have to cover all the fees the mortgage company would incur which will mean that you're likely to be left with a lot more of the equity to yourself.
Simply put the answer is yes, you can sell your house with mortgage arrears. If you're a homeowner that has unfortunately fallen into arrears then you will have an outstanding debt with the mortgage company, but selling your home can help with this and is one of the best ways to stop house repossessions. Selling your property is likely to release a significant sum of equity, as long as your property has risen in value or you've been making mortgage payments for months / years prior to the recent struggle, then the sale of your property should generate some extra money which can be used to clear any of the debt you have accumulated.
If you start to fall into arrears, selling your home can be a good way of paying this off, if you are unable to work something out with the mortgage company. It's best to act quickly before repossession proceedings begin, in order to give yourself enough time to sell your property, depending how long down the line you are with your arrears, you may need to seek a quick sale, which is something we can help with.
When you're at risk of a repossession, if you want to sell and rescue a bit of equity, then you need to act quite quickly. Unfortunately a traditional sale, or even a property auction, sometimes just isn't quick enough to sell your house in the 3 to 6 months required.
We can buy your house in as little as 7 days, quick enough to stop house repossessions, and we’re property buying experts who can help you throughout the whole process. We've dealt with hundreds of homeowners that have been at risk of repossession and managed to buy their house quick enough, whilst covering all their fees, for them to be able to repay their mortgage arrears and completely avoid the stressful situation of being repossessed.
We are as transparent as we can be from the start, we're clear in the fact that we are unable to offer you full market value. We offer a fast buying service that means we can purchase your property in as little as 7 days, with no estate agent fees, no mortgage involved, and no council tax or utility bills over the months you would typically be waiting to sell.
As a rule of thumb we typically offer around 80% of the market value of your home, but this depends as sometimes it can be more or less, it depends upon the condition of your property and its location. There's no obligation, so if you fill in an offer request by clicking a green 'get an offer' button we'll be able to provide you with an offer on your property.
There are a lot of reasons that you should choose us, but we would say that wouldn't we! We're a reliable company with over 50 years combined experience in the property industry, and have dealt with customers who are in a variety of different circumstances, including at risk of repossession. We pride ourselves on being completely honest and transparent about our service, as well as the fact we handle absolutely everything for you, taking all the hassle out of a traditional sale.
If that hasn't quite convinced you enough, here are some of the benefits of our service:
We understand that selling your home is a big deal, and you need to ensure that whoever you are selling it to is trustworthy. You may feel at ease to know that we are part of The Property Ombudsman (TPO) and the National Association of Property Buyers (NAPB) which ensures that we operate to the highest standards and all home owners are treated fairly. We are dedicated to providing a quality and professional service throughout our whole process, but you don't have to just take our word for it. Read our reviews on TrustPilot and Reviews.co.uk.
If you don't get repossessed and manage to sell your property before having this mark on your credit file then yes of course it will be easier to get a mortgage than if you go through the repossession process. It isn't impossible to get a mortgage if you have had a previous repossession, it's just much harder.
It's important to understand before you apply for a mortgage how they will assess you after a repossession, some mortgage companies will be easier to get accepted for than others with stricter criteria. There are also a few factors that will affect how easy it is to get a mortgage after a repossession including:
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