Mortgage arrears - Bank wont help us

[Unregistered]

It would be worth your while to just stop paying and stick it out for as long as you can will take them min 1.5 years and up to 7 to repossess so sit it out rent free for a few years and save your money

[Unregistered]

That does sound very tempting but this is our home and we do want to pay for it. Last week we gave the bank nearly 1500 euros for our mortgage but they claim they cant deduct it from our arrears because our account is frozen (yet if we could pay all or half the arrears - around 2500-then they could unblock the account- funny that!). They said we needed to speak with their lawyers who have wrote to us. We said we had not received the letters which is true as post where we are is very tempermental and asked that they email it to us which they said they cannot do and said we needed to provide another address which we cannot do as this is our only address. They then said that their system did show that the letters they sent were returned (yet at no point in our daily communication with the bank did they ask us to confirm our address or said these letters had come back!) Exactly how they expect us to reply to a letter from their lawyers when we never receive them is a mystery to me! We left the branch after ensuring our address was correct on their system and asking again for them to contact their legal department to get our account unblocked so that these payments could be taken into account and asking them to email us the lawyers details which they said they would. We backed this up again in an email to them when we got home. So imagine my surprise when today not only is the account still blocked and our payment not deducted but we seem to have incurred a 600 euro charge!! So we have emailed them again as no reply from them following our visit last week. How anyone is meant to be able to manage their affairs here is beyond me. After our visit last week we felt confident we could get up to date by xmas and that the bank may actually be doing something to try and help but how very wrong are we. We have now incurred nearly 900 euros worth of "charges" in just 2 weeks plus not forgetting the daily interest charges. We just do not seem to be getting anywhere. Does anyone have any advice as to what we should do?

[Unregistered]

You would pay a spainish lawyer a lot less than 900euro it might be worth talking to one at this point.

[beaudoin]

It would be worth your while to just stop paying and stick it out for as long as you can will take them min 1.5 years and up to 7 to repossess so sit it out rent free for a few years and save your money

Do you think this is the only solutions. Because money saving isn't the only problem here.

[lawbird]

Leaving your property out there for repossession should always be your last resort. The consequences of such course of action are simply too harsh on an individual.

When a borrower takes out a mortgage in Spain he becomes responsible for the repayment of such with any other personal property he has abroad or in Spain, both now or in the future. Of course that the property being mortgaged acts as a guarantee and this can be returned in account of the amount outstanding of the mortgage. However, with the fall in property prices, the property is often accepted/auctioned at much less than current market price and the borrower remains personally liable for the amount which is left outstanding in the mortgage. In other words, you are left without the property but with a personal debt that can amount to thousands and thousands of euros with your bank.

The bank will then be in search of any other assets available that will reduce the outstanding balance. The Bank can legally go after any other properties (in Spain or the UK), vehicles, bank accounts and even place a partial embargo over your salary.

If a possibility to renegotiate the mortgage is available and under these new terms the borrower can fulfill his payment obligations, then this is always the preferred choice.

For more information on how a Lawyer can help in the negotiation, please visit the following link or contact us at info @ lawbird.com:

http://belegal.com/blog-by-antonio-f...mortgage-loan/