Banks chasing dept

Does anyone know of anyone who has been chased back to the UK and had their own property seized here in the Uk by a spanish bank because of reposession of their Spanish property.

 Depends who you bank with, but Barclays have an arrears department in the UK for UK owners with Spanish property.

Mark

The reality is Deepwater that at some point there will be Companies if they are not already involved, specialising in persuing owners who've walked away from their liabilities in Spain?

I'm not aware myself about any current situations but I do know of a Company who have been successful with chasing Uk owners for unpaid Community Fees for their Spanish Property .

I've recently had contact with a Spanish Lawyer who writes on this Forum (Not Maria) whose been representing clients  who wish to hand their property back to the Spanish Banks. The cleanest way he advises, would be to contact the bank, declare your position and discuss a formal procedure for handing back the property. The procedure is called  "Dacion en Pago". The owner pays for an independant valuation and that figure is compared with the outstanding balance of the mortgage. 

If the value is higher than the loan, the procedure is fairly straight forward. If its less then you would in theory have to pay the bank the difference between the two figures before they would take ownership of the property?

I'm sure most people, particularly ones who are in negative equity will have just handed back the keys and walked away. But theres always the chance that the debt will follow you back to wherever you live at some point and if you have any realisable assets you could end up being sued in the Uk Courts?

 Maybe if its one of the banks in the UK owned by the taxpayer you could tell them to deduct the amount of the mortgage owed from what they owe you!!!

I would be surprised if any of the Spanish banks managed to force repayment from Brits who do go back home and just leave their property .

For one thing the UK is virtually impotent when it comes to getting money owed to the UK in the forms of fines etc that have been accrued by foreign individuals who leave the country without paying and secondly most of the people who have found themselves in negative equity are there because of the corrupt lawyers and officials in Spain that led to the massive overvaluation of these properties(that is if you can call some of those boxes a property).

If your already out and have given your keys back i would just forget about it, just dont go back there again

 The corret and safe way is to go through the dación en pago procedure, with a valuation of your house made by your own surveyor ( not the Bank´s) and communicate to the Bank an address you can easily receive notifications in orde to avoid the Bank using the European Certificate of Debt.

These two links can be useful for you:

http://www.eyeonspain.com/blogs/costaluz/1094/legal-tip-27-dation-in-payment-a-right.aspx

http://www.eyeonspain.com/blogs/costaluz/3044/legal-tip-239-warning-on-uncontested-claims.aspx

Also forget to ask, if you hand your keys back does it affect your credit rating here in the UK?

Deepwater,

The Credit Rating Agencies are only allowed to record debts that have resulted from non payment of bills, late payments on loans such as mortgage arrears and other defaults resulting from Court Actions in in the UK.

Your biggest concern would be from Spanish mortgage lenders who have strong links with UK banks such as Barclays, Halifax,  Santander etc.

 Deepwater:

You do not need to be worried about Credit Rating Agencies in Spain as what you are doing through the dación en pago process is to effectively pay a debt. You cannot be enlisted in those Agencies.

Best regards,

Maria

Maria,

Deepwater doesn't appear to be planning to use the dación en pago process and he's only concerned about the Credit Rating Agencies in the UK NOT Spain!!