This is a letter sent to an investigative journalist who contacted me yesterday about mortgage repossessions.
It occurred to me it might be useful to clarify a couple of points after talking to you about repossession issues yesterday.
My impression of the County Court repossession hearing where the judge appeared to be a bit outrageous is that it was an extremely powerful example of the extreme difficulties facing people with mortgage difficulties. The court was deliberately unhelpful, or perhaps one might say it acted completely incorrectly and in a biased manner.
I would like to let you know that the hearings at the court are taped and the tapes kept for two years. I had always thought I ought to get hold of that tape, but that chore slid into oblivion as I have been busy with more pressing priorities. I might suggest you see a transcript because it might give you a juicy morsel.
If my memory serves me correctly ( and I think it does) a transcript of that tape (which I am entitled to acquire) will show the judge being literally ridiculous.
I had already been given a six month stay by the court and this judge terminated this at three months solely on the grounds I had broken the terms of the previous court order of three months prior by taking more than the (entirely arbitrary 28 days) to make a payment from a pension.
I did not technically break the terms actually, simply because I had followed correct legal procedure by going back to the court and asking for more time as it was entirely out of my hands how long the pension company took.
Legal procedure would demand that a hearing of the application for more time take place and whatever the result of that hearing would take the case forward to different terms to the previous order. That is it’s purpose – to vary a previous court order. In this case to request more time. In legal parlance I think it is called a ‘directions’ hearing. Of course a judge might decide to let the status quo of the original hearing stand.
The result of my application was that it was heard by a judge in my absence who instructed that it was unnecessary for me to be heard in person as he decided and directed that as the case was to be heard at a ‘review’ hearing already scheduled for a few weeks hence at the three month mark, that this application of mine for more time be heard at that review hearing.
The upshot, therefore, is that the Judge at the review hearing entirely mismanaged the case with a clearly documented and vicious bias against me and simply steamrollered over me, which deserves exposure. I have heard similar things are experienced in other repossession cases. The courts are not always sympathetic as is commonly thought.
After the judge found this technical excuse to terminate my previously ordered six month stay and (spuriously) order repossession, he then addressed the other issue he was obliged to consider which is that the court can order a stay of the lender’s repossession request if it looks likely the householder might be able to regain sufficient income in the reasonable future (can legally be at any time within the lifetime of the mortgage, therefore potentially a very long time period of grace available) to maintain the mortgage.
The judge ignored (completely declined ) my evidence of forthcoming work which I was waving in my hand and he proceeded to make a superciliously dismissive speech about how he thought it was not feasible or possible for anyone to earn an adequate income from freelance journalism, or freelance public relations consultancy. He would therefore order repossession.
The lender’s solicitor was surprised at the behaviour of the judge. We had a lengthy conversation about it after the case.
As it happened I then proceeded to do some freelance writing work for two very large multinational companies.
I would like to let you know, however, that the combined effect of all the circumstances surrounding my failing attempts to fight off repossession now left me with impossible levels of stress, the net result of which was I could barely engage in work at all.
The curious thing, is that doing the bit of work I did was an absolute pleasure involving no stress at all despite it looking as though it ought to.
I was obliged to engage in re-mortgaging at that time to avoid looming eviction as the lender always kept me expecting to receive an eviction notice at any time. I was always at three weeks notice of eviction for the next several months. I never really knew if I was actually going to be in the house in about three weeks time. It was horrendous.
With benefit of hindsight, I can now see that my ability to work has been seriously compromised by extreme stress since these events. My doctor insisted I acknowledge that as I was ignoring it. I am currently fighting a daily battle to get past the constant stress to get things done.
The stress has produced physical illness and it looks to be the likely cause of the failure of the abdominal surgery previously mentioned. This seriously compromises me and exposes me to an increased risk of cancer. The whole point of the surgery was to diminish the risk of cancer as a pre-cancerous state already existed. I am now imminently faced with an unnecessary repeat of that abdominal surgery involving five holes stabbed in my abdomen and a subtle re-arranging of stomach, oesophagus and diaphragm in what is called a fundoplication operation. Not fun.
You might understand it if I say that I would wish to sit down and spend at least eight hours a day trying to bring in an do the freelance work, but that I am surrounded by a sea of chaos, led principally by the artificial pressures brought about by the lender.
This demands that I give priority to the lenders aggravations instead of getting on with the business of actually earning a living – which I am eminently qualified to do.
The other issue about repossession which it might be helpful to highlight is this.
Whenever a householder becomes involved in arrears, the only people he can ever have access to to discuss his mortgage and try and ‘negotiate’ with are very junior ‘call centre’ employees, often with very limited education and mental abilities, no ability or authority to ‘negotiate’ anything at all, and almost always with no communications skills at all.
Because these people simply follow a specific ‘script’ and standard list of questions, there is no meaningful negotiation possible. All they want is your answers to their standard list of questions. The minute you deviate from that and try and tell them what you need to tell or ask them they tend to interrupt and talk over you, rapidly reducing any conversation to a load of nonsense; the only upshot of which is reducing you to a harassed, threatened mess.
You always feel threatened. They nearly always speak in a hectoring manner which tends to leave you a juddering heap in the best of circumstances. The displays of ignorance can be breathtaking.
When I asked one of these people if I could have a moratorium on my mortgage she sort of screeched ‘wotsat then’. I was speaking to a financial institution which didn’t even understand the language of banking. How can you sensibly negotiate anything with people like that ?
As all the lending institutions appear to have identical systems, quite indistinquishable from each other, the Council of Mortgage Lenders claim that lenders do everything possible to be helpful and avoid repossessions is utter rubbish. It seems, rather, to be quite the reverse, a blind steamroller of systemised encouragement of repossessions where many of them could easily be avoided.
strugglingsingledad
