In 1997, I gave up my flat in London for voluntary repossession. The shortfall was over £20,000. It has been a long and difficult journey but last week, EVERSHEDS phoned me and said that their client, Abbey National, would be willing to accept my offer of £1000 as full and final settlement. I am of course relieved and overjoyed.

I had quite a good case against Abbey National (right at the beginning they agreed to my offer of £50 a month and then due to an administrative error failed to contact me for three years) and also a number of things in my favour such as other debts, no savings, and the fact that I am self-employed and live in Sweden but I was still surprised that AN agreed to settle.

I would just like to say thank you to all the people from this site who helped me along the way. The site gave me the confidence to keep on arguing my case and gave me some invaluable amunition such as the legal principle of estoppel.

Just in case it helps others, here are some things that I have learnt along the way:

1) Keep all communication written. 2) Don't be intimidated by the legal language and don't be bullied. 3) The people writing the letters are not as intelligent as they might appear. On several occassions I was able to destroy arguments with simple logic and basic human values. 4) Perservere and seek knowledge from sites such as this one.

The very best of luck to all of you caught up in these sort of very trying situations and may stories such as mine give you the encouragement to "fight" on.

Regards Gary Niemen

-- Gary Niemen (gary.niemen@swipnet.se), March 09, 2001

Answers

Response to £1000 settlement

Hi Gary,

Thanks for offering to help people on this site.

In particular, could you tell us about the invaulable help you received with regard to the legal principle of estoppel? There have been a couple of threads about this, but I'm not myself sure where they are leading us, and I'd be very interested to get your advice.

Why did a London flat sell for twenty grand less than the mortgage in 1997, by the way?

all best,

-- Eleanor Scott (eleanor.scott@btinternet.com), March 13, 2001.

Response to £1000 settlement

Hi Gary,

Thanks for your private post and I'm glad you found a resolution to your shortfall situation which suited you.

Those posts which mention estoppel are quite a way down the Q&A board, incidentally, for anyone who's interested in reading them, under the headings 'Estoppel' and 'Unusual Shortfall Repossession Case'. They discuss in particular undue delay on the part of the lenders in contacting ex borrowers about alleged shortfalls.

all best,

-- Eleanor Scott (eleanor.scott@btinternet.com), March 18, 2001.