The first time you go to court, you’ll find out whether or not your lender has succeeded in taking out a house repossession notice, or house repossession order, on your home. Luckily, courts rarely grant repossession orders on the first hearing however it does happen especially if you are not in court. The law usually feels that granting a repossession order straight off is too harsh. So it is usually used as a last resort, in cases where there’s no chance the borrower can put things right.

Home repossession notice: Repossession Order or Suspended Order?

In most cases the judge will grant a suspended order.

If you’ve been given a suspended repossession order, you can stay in your house but you must abide by the court’s ruling. This tends to involve repaying your arrears on time, in full, over an agreed timescale;

If the court feels you are unlikely to repay your arrears in a reasonable amount of time, then a repossession notice is the most likely outcome. In this case the court will give you a date on which, by law, you have to leave the property;

Either way, the sooner you take action the better chance you have of avoiding actual house repossession. The process below gives you plenty of opportunities to put things right:

1. Home Repossession notice Payment Reminder

House Repossessions are bad publicity, and your bank or financial lender will be keen to continue a good relationship with you. After all, you’re a customer. Most mortgage lenders will contact you via their internal arrears collection unit when they notice a missed payment. If not after one missed payment, they’ll be in touch after two.

2)Solicitor’s Letter

If you don’t repay your arrears, or ignore their attempts to contact you, they’ll get in touch via their solicitor. The letter will demand full, immediate payment and it’ll warn you about the risk of repossession.

3. Proceedings for Home Repossession

The solicitor will issue property repossession notice proceedings with the County Court. The Court gets details of your arrears then sets a hearing date.

4)Court Order

• If there’s information outstanding or you don’t turn up, the hearing is adjourned and the court will set a new date.

• If you have repaid your arrears completely before the hearing, it’ll be dismissed or indefinitely adjourned.

• If you agree a plan to repay your arrears the Court will probably be happy to grant a suspended possession order.

• Otherwise, the court will make a house repossession order or house repossession notice. This means the lender can take repossession of the property, generally just 28 days later.

For more information please contact a local solicitor, you may be able to have a no obligation chat about the process which may help you to start organising your fight and finances.