Repossession

** EDITED - Please respect forum rules **

 Sometimes Bank reacts offering deals for mortgage extension once you propose the dation ( keys back) to them.

Why in God's name would any be stupid enough to buy a place in Spain after reading horror stories like this one. Do the British check their brains at the door when board that cheap easyjet flight to the sun. Particularly when one can rent a nice place dirt cheap and leave all the heart ache, financial pain to the owner???????

I guess the idea that you're throwing your money away by renting is to ingrained in our western mind even when renting is half the cost!!!!!

Note: I have nothing against Spain I love living here I just refuse to mortgage my financial future  by buying a place

We didn't manage to sell. Our buyers dropped out as they couldn't get a mortgage! this is surprisingly common as banks simply don't have any money to lend

BTW my comment above wasn't a slight on the orginal poster

Well, here I am again!

We never managed to sell the house but we did, with difficulty, manage to continue the mortgage payments. Until now.

My husband was made redundant about 20 months ago, but he has re trained and is now working again. Unfortunately he is not earning anywhere near the salary he had when we took on the mortgage and my work has just come to an end. We have used all the redundancy money to cover the mortgage and there is nothing left now.

The bank has said that depending on our UK credit reports, they will offer to extend the mortgage and give us a year of interest only. This would really help. We've dropped the house price to rock bottom.

Unfortunately, we have debt in England from when we struggled before and I've a horrid feeling that this will go against us. ( I thought we were paying a debt management plan but have just discovered that my husband never made the arrangement and the debt has gone unpaid).

We applied for the credit reports before Christmas and mine has been delayed over and over, so it has been hanging over us. Our bank accounts and credit cards were in joint names, so the unpaid debt will be on my record too.

If the bank, won't make us an offer we either have to ask for a dacion or let the bank reposses. The dacion will leave us penniless and homeless, but debt free in Spain. There is equity in the house so I think the banks would accept this.

Repossession would give us a chance to sell the house and pay off the uk debt, although obviously, if it doesn't sell, the banks will chase us for the money, although we have no uk assets and at our ages, would never be able to buy another home.

I really don't know which would be the best option.

When we went into arrears before, the bank put an embargo on our account. Luckily we sorted it quickly, but I'm wondering what would happen if they put an embargo on and we can't pay the arrears. What would happen to any money that is paid in to cover bills? Will the bank take that for the shortfall or will the bills get paid? If I put money into a different account for bills, can they embargo that too?

Can anyone offer any advice please?

No, hanks for the suggestion, but that's our only hope for the future.

Actually, I don't think mine will be too good anyway. When we moved here, our child benefit contributions were paid to my OH as he was working in the uk. I didn't realise at the time that my "Home responibilities protection" would stop, when we did this. As far as I can see, this means I will have a shortfall.

I've always worried about my pension, even when I thought I was financially secure. I am terrified of becoming a financial burden on my kids. It's difficult enough for young people to pay off student loans and get themselves debt free, without having to worry about supporting parents.

One of the wort things about this for me, is tht I can't help my kids out. One son is in his final year at uni. His loan is calculated on my husbands salary. We were happy to support him while we could, but he is now suffering from spirraling debt because my husband stopped making contributions to him last summer. At this point he needs to be concentrating on his degree not worrying about finances.

My husband paid into a private scheme until he was made redundant. He's now autonomo. I can't bear to think of the future at this point, but it is frightening enough without taking from the pension pot.

When my husband was employed in the UK, we had very good life insurance. I now panic if he is a few minutes late in arriving home. I just  can't think about what life would be like if he has an accident, gets ill or can't work for any reason. It was my idea to move to spain and it is something I waill always regret. At least in the UK, if the unthinkable happens, there are benefits. Here there is nothing.

Well I never imagined I had anything to protect myself from! I've been married for over 25 years and thought I could trust my husband.

From thinking we had 25,000 in the bank, I now find myself penniless, heavily in debt and married to a stranger. What a fool!

I'm currently waiting for an Experian report. Unfortunately they told me I could apply online using my previous UK address. Days later, they asked for a copy of my passport. Days after that, they wanted a signed letter to confirm my address and finally, on Friday, said I need to apply by post.

Its unfortunately an expensive lesson you have learned !

How may I ask would you have done things differently

G

Firstly I would have taken an IVA for the UK debts. We would only have had two years of payments left on that.

Secondly, I should have insisted we contact the bank as soon as he was made redundant and insisted that we dropped the house price to rock bottom, at that point.

Then I should have been checking the balance of our accounts instead of asking my husband if the money is still there. I should have kept quiet about the cash I had saved for a rainy day instead of putting in the safe where my husband could dip into it. I should not have believed him when he said he was earning enough and there was sufficient money coming in.

This has all blown up now because I insisted to my husband that we seriously consider a dacion while we still had some money left, to get us back to the uk and rent somewhere. I didn't know it was already too late and the money had gone. We are now trapped.

I would have cut back on everything except essentials and made sure that my son was getting the allowance that we had promised him and that we were dealing with the UK debt.

Basically, we should have taken action sooner, before we got into this state.We would still have been broke but the situation could have been so much more manageable.

Llindie...

Is there any point in trying to rent your house out?  A friend of ours has been trying to sell his Spanish house for the past 5 years, ever since his wife left him to go back to the UK.  He was devastated and, at one point, he was at such a low ebb that we worried for his mental health. He was living hand-to-mouth doing odd jobs to pay the bills and couldn't see a way out of his predicament...knowing there was practically no chance he was going to sell his house any time soon.  Finally, last year, he met a wonderful woman who saw him as the lovely person he is and she moved in with him, payed all the bills and made him see that, in order to get out of his hated situation, he had to look at every possibility to make it happen.  A few months ago, he rented his house out at a low rent to attract long-term tenents (a Dutch couple) and he and his new partner have moved to a Spanish city where there is work for them both.  It took guts and a lot of planning but the last time we spoke to our friends (naturally, the new partner has been added to our list of friends!) they sounded happy!  By the way, our friends are both in their late fifties ie; not spring chickens!

Have you verified if you apply for individual Bankruptcy from Courts?

Lindie, sorry to hear about the ongoing stress you are facing.  This has been going on for some time now.

Can I ask a few questions?

1. How old are the UK debts?  Do these creditors know you are in Spain? (I'll explain why I'm asking later)

2. I assume you are not working now but your husband is.  Is what he earns enough to cover your living expenses? Even at break even point?

3. Are your mortgage payments currently much higher than rentals in your area?

Justin

Thank you all.

We do rent the house out for holidaymakers and are living in a small apartment that comes with it. It is only by doing this that we have been able to cope with the bills at all. For the last 2 years we moved out entirely during the summer, so that we had extra bedrooms for my children coming back during university holidays, but we are planning to remain in the apartment next summer in order to save money and try to get straight.

A long term rental wouldn't cover the mortgage. The mortgage is 2300 per month, so yes, more than rentals. The bills are also colossal. We've just had a 2 month water bill for €800 and our IBI is over 3000.

The uk debts are 3 years old. All correspondance, we assume, has been going to my husband's previous address in the UK. Having just applied for credit reports, I guess the creditors will soon have our Spanish address.

With the rentals on the house we can cover the expenses along with my husband's salary. We will need to use the last of our savings till the first rental in April, but then we should be able to manage and with me in control of the finances, hopefully even put some aside for next year. That is if the banks will make the offer on the mortgage.

We have considered bankruptcy, but I have been away from the UK too long to do it there and I think my husband may have too. (I've had conflicting advice on that, so I'm not sure if you have to do it before 3 months away or 3 years).

I don't know what the situation is here in Spain. HOWEVER, my husband works in finance and believes that if he goes bankrupt he will lose his job here, and would have no hope of ever getting employment in the UK again so that has to remain a very last resort. He is in his 50's so not a lot of options employment wise.

Maddie, so pleased your friends are doing well. Encouraging to hear.

If I was you I would force him to access his tax free cash from his pension then help your son, hide the rest go bancrupt and then leave him

What else has he done behind your back he sounds like a right Bas--rd

And a mortgage of 2300 a month thats crazy you seem to have lived beyond your means and unfortunately you are now paying the price

The only good thing is hopefully someone will read this and avoid this happening to them

Sorry for been so blunt but you need to wake up to this.

G

Whoa, that's a big mortgage.  And why are your water bills so high? Do you have a lot of land or something?

I can see why you would be under a lot of stress now, that's a lot of money to find every month.

Have you considered just walking away from the house, and dropping the keys off at the bank?  If you guys just rented a small apartment it sounds like you could at least live comfortably on current earnings, even be able to save a bit and possibly return to the UK?

Yes, the bank will get heavy on you but sometimes you just need a fresh start, at least to make sense of things and maintain one's sanity.

And don't feel sorry for the banks, they are the ones who have made many people get into serious financial difficulties and after recently seeing a Spanish family getting evicted by the bank, well, I am joining the Spaniards in their general hatred for most banks.

Best of luck in whatever you decide to do.

Justin

The mortgage was affordable eight years ago when we took it out, though with the wonderful benefit of hindsight, we shouldn't have taken it.

We do have a fair bit of land to irrigate but I think most of the cost is down to rental guests just splashing it all out of the pool and refilling. Hopefully, if we are on site from now on, they may be more careful. The same with the electricity.

I think my husband was more misguided than anything. He has always thought that something would turn up and his earnings would increase and it would all get better. He's had his head in the sand and made bad decisions. Aside from this, I couldn't have wished for a better husband, though I can understand why that would be difficult  for others to understand, given how things are.

I am very angry and very upset, but until the last few years we've had a lovely life and I don't think I could walk away just because it has become difficult. At the moment, I just can't allow myself to be angry, I need all my energy to move on and deal with the situation we are in.

The decion to hand the keys back is an easy one to consider but a very difficult one to make. There is a lot of equity in the property and it is hard to walk away from that. If we could realise even half of it, it would make a huge difference to our lives. As I can't trust my husband's judgement any more, it is falling to me alone to decide what to do. I'm going over and over it all but I'm just not confident of getting it right.

You took your mortgage out 8 years ago and, even with the rates as low as they are, it is still costing you 2,300 a month.  Your property must be huge.  Unfortunately, it is very unlikely in these ecconomic times that you'll sell anytime soon...even at half the price it would have been valued at if the market was stable. 

The friends I mentioned previously are in the process of buying another property, since the other property is rented out long term to good tenants.  The property they are buying is a Bank repo' a few kilometers from a University City (hence the increased chance of work).  It was first put on the market at 159,000 euros a couple of years ago.  It was then reduced drastically to 90,000 euros.  A few weeks ago, it was down to 59,000 euros and my friends then took a look at it.  They offered 45,000 and this was accepted!  We're talking about a 4-bedroomed place with land that requires some modernisation.

I mention this to bring it home to you just how hard it is to sell property in Spain in the higher price brackets.  I think you should put yourselves first this time and, as Justine says, forget about the Bank.  They have made enough money out of enough people.   Obviously, your husband was severely stressed to 'lose' it as far as your savings were concerned.  As you say, he is a wonderful husband in other ways.  Don't waste any more of your life on this place.  Walk away and get on with your lives. Sorry to write such a cliche...but,  It IS the only life you've got. 

Maddie