On Friday 21 May I received a letter advising a shortfall of #27,385 is due from me.

The details are as follows.

- I received the letter from the lender (not solicitor or agency), Lloyds - The mortgage was in my name only - I know have another house with Abbey National in joint names with my girlfriend - When I purchased my flat in July 1989 Black Horse (part of Lloyds) valued it for #50k; they sold it September 1996 for #13,500 which works out at 27% of the original value. One or both of the valuations would seem to be off! - I voluntary gave up possession of the flat using a specialised company in Southend whose name escapes me for the moment. I do have the paper work but after moving three times in as many years need to lay my hands on it.

I purchased another property in 1993 taken into account the flat I have already into the mortgage multiple (negative equity mortgages didn't exist then) and tried to rent the flat out. The rent did not even cover the mortgage and thats when I could rent it. When my wife and tried for a family I could no longer afford to keep the flat and took the chance to hand the keys back.

My recent life history in brief, 9 months later baby boy, 3 days later he died following accident in hospital, wife and I split up over trying to cope with it, sold house, met someone else purchased house July last year, found out she was pregnant when we moved in, now have 3 month baby daughter no money but happy, until last Friday that is!

So I have a massive legal bill for the divorce (#2k) and know having to content with this. I must admit to feeling a little depressed over the weekend but after death, divorce I think I can take this on

I have until 03 June by which time I should have replied. I am in the lucky position of really not having any spare cash to speak off as mortgaged up to the eyeballs, newly arrived daughter and trying to survive on one salary (not practical for girlfriend to work at old job min 12-hour day).

The outcome I would like to clear this debt in some fashion so I don't have to worry about it, not paying any money would be great.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards Kevin Trill

-- Kevin Trill (ktrill@poboxes.com), May 25, 1999

Answers

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about the shortfall letter.

I'd recommend several things to do as your next step:

1. Serve a Data protection Act notice on the lender 2. Read the Bradford & Bingley shortfall letters in the repossession section of this page and use them as templates to *politely* insist that Lloyds explain the sale price and provide documentation for their attempts. 3. Answer no questions until they have answered yours and documented their answer. They'll threaten Hell and high water, well: court action. Just keep politely asking your questions about the sale price and documentation. The reasons for this are well documented in the rest of the site.

You're in quite a good position in that you're broke!

Good luck.

Lee

-- Lee (repossession@bigfoot.com), May 30, 1999.

Seem to be having problem with the links on the site, the majority of links I access always take me back the the home page.

Any ideas.

-- Kevin Trill (ktrill@poboxes.com), May 30, 1999.

I've been rebuilding a lot of the site today and still am so I may be the culprit. However, the site does use frames and will try to return you to the initial page if you try to view pages outside of the frames (in separate windows). You should be able to reach all parts of the site by going to:

http://www.lee-k.dircon.co.uk/ or http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~lee-k/ if you use an old browser

and using the links in the left hand navigation bar and in the top of the pages to move around.

If that doesn't work, please let me know which version of which browser you use and let me know of a couple of links that definitely show the problem. I'll then try to replicate it and figure out a solution.

Lee

-- Lee (repossession@bigfoot.com), May 30, 1999.

Thanks for the update, all seems OK now but in the meantime I have upgraded to IE5 as yours was not the only site I had problems with. Thanks for the advice given me a few useful leads.

Regarding debt advice what are your views on Citizens Advice Bureau, Specialist Advice Agencies , plain old slicitor / lawyer.

-- Kevin Trill (ktrill@poboxes.com), May 30, 1999.

Glad it's sorted. If you - or anyone else - has a problem navigating the site, please, please let me know and I'll try to work out what it is and fix it.

I think the CAB have got a lot better. They have an information pack for repossessees facing shortfall demands that includes sample letters you can use. Like most counsellors they tend to concentrate more on how to cope with it and minimise the claims without actively trying to find out what really happened and use that to reduce the size of the claim.

Most solicitors are awful. If you read the letters from lenders' and customers' lawyers on the site, you're left wondering how the heck they justify their fees. This does not make it easy to point readers to good lawyers but where I've had recommendations I do name them in the Who Helps? section.

I'd very much like to put up a list of good mortgage-specialist solicitors along the lines of the one I've done for specialist brokers. Unfortunately, very few lawyers seem to have public email addresses let alone web-sites so this may have to wait.

I'm aware that some lawyers find the site's approach a little antagonistic, but it's more that the site is aimed at people whose self-confidence needs some buttressing. I invite any lawyers who specialise in this area to get in touch with me and move this on though. There is clearly a need.

Lee

-- Lee (repossession@bigfoot.com), May 30, 1999.