I settled my shortfall with the Halifax about a year ago for about 13% of the claimed amount owing. This suited me at the time and they have marked my credit reference files with Experian and Equifax as 'satisfied'. Thanks for all the advice these pages gave me, it proved invaluable to me. If anybody wants any specific details of my case get in touch and I will assist where possible.

I am now ready to look for another mortgage but first want a few questions answering:

1. Will any of the high street lenders entertain the notion of giving me a mortgage? I don't want to end up paying over the odds for a few years with a specialist lender if this is not necessary, yet I am reluctant to go through a high street lender only only to find that their refusal gives me another black mark on my file.

2. Of the others, can anybody provide contact details of the 'Master' brokers as opposed to the ones that charge a huge commission for arranging a 'problem' mortgage.

3. I have been advised by a broker that if I request lenders to do 'no caps' credit searches there will be no records of the searches made on my files. Is there such a thing as a 'no caps search', what is it, and does it work in the real world that we all know?

Your responses will be greatly appreciated.

-- good luck (moovanon@ntlworld.com), April 15, 2002

Answers

Congratulations on your settlement. Ref Q.3. A "no caps" search yields the same info as a recorded search, but leaves no record of said search on the credit file, as is required by Law. I believe, possibly wrongly, that it means "no capture" - i.e. it's a shadow search and technically should not be undertaken by "unauthorised" agencies or individuals. Well well well.

-- Too scared to say (iwasduped@yahoo.com), April 15, 2002.

Congratulations on your successful closure of your problem with the Halifax. I hope that you really have finished with them and that they don't re-surface later on as some of the advice on this site suggests that they might. Have you obtained an unequivocal assurance from them that their claim has been fully met and renouncing any further attempts to recover the 87% they appear from your comments to have written off? I wonder also if part of the claim they were making was made up of MIG payout by the Royal Sun Alliance? If so I would be wary of the RSA suddenly taking up the chase. What would be extremely useful to know for myself and other Halifax borrowers are some of the details about how you managed to arrive at settlement. For example, did you fill out an I & E form and negotiate on the basis of low income? If you gave them no income details how many offers and counter offers did you go through? How did you make an offer or offers without accepting liability for the debt? Did you use a solicitor as an intermediary? It would be useful to know how much the claim was originally for and whether or not you served SARNs and challenged the basis of items in the claim? I suspect that many of us in a similar position would settle if we could do so at 13% of the claim. Any information you are willing to divulge would be of great interest.

-- Gordon Bennet (arsenewhinger@hotmail.com), April 16, 2002.

Well done, good to see. I was able to obtain a new mortgage within 2 weeks of settling my problem. I made sure i worded my settlement correctly and got all details of the old mortgage removed from the CRA's. It can be done. I got mine down to just over 7% of the original claim and could have gone further if it wasn't for the fact i needed to make an offer on a new property so quickly!

-- Terry Harborne (terry@grabbynational.co.uk), April 16, 2002.

Another success story! I'd be really interested to know how you managed to whittle the AN down to 7% Terry. Please can you give us some details?

-- Gordon Bennet (arsenewhinger@hotmail.com), April 17, 2002.

Sure, i've had it documented for a few years now. www.grabbynational.co.uk is the story!

-- Terry (terry@grabbynational.co.uk), April 17, 2002.

Response to Gordon Bennet's questions

Q. Have you obtained an unequivocal assurance from them that their claim has been fully met and renouncing any further attempts to recover the 87% they appear from your comments to have written off?

A. Yes I have a letter which is almost identical to the one recieved by the owner of the later question posted by tequilaslammas about their success story with the Halifax.

Q. I wonder also if part of the claim they were making was made up of MIG payout by the Royal Sun Alliance? If so I would be wary of the RSA suddenly taking up the chase.

A. In my communication I always stated 'The Halifax or third parties' to ensure that the Halifax spoke for all parties. Although not foolproof - they have entered into the spirit of it.

Q. Did you fill in an Income & Expenditure form prior to negotiations about offers?

A. Yes, before I discovered the home repo page and its advice I did fill out one of those forms, however at the time I had no job and my expenditure was far greater than what income I did have. I learned from that mistake when they started asking really petty questions about the details of the breakdown instead of clearly seeing that I could afford nowt. Once in employment I refused to fill out one of these forms despite many attempts from them get me to do so.

Q. If you gave no details of income / assets etc., how did you go about achieving an accepted offer?

A. Despite them knowing that I had become employed, but not the details of employer or salary, I just reiterated that I could not afford to get into a monthly arrangement with them, and that I was looking at options for how I could make some kind of ex-gratia payment without accepting any liability.

Q. Were there many offers and counter offers, or did the Halifax respond to an initial offer with a figure you could accept?

A. I proposed a figure below what I thought in my widest dreams they would accept, they accepted it straight away. If I had known more I would have started around 5% to really test them out and then negotiated a little.

Q. How much hassle did you put them through eg SARNs and constant requests for mortgage deeds / MIG policies etc.?

A. I gathered a huge list of questions to ask them and obviously they could only provide me with very basic responses and only to a limited few questions. I constantly reiterated the questions and my dissatisfaction at the inadequacy of their responses. They got pissed off with me and the threats got worse. They had got to the stage of telling me that the information I was after was not relevant or would not be useful in settling our dispute and that I was clearly delaying matters (how observant), so I put them right on these points. When it was obvious that I had got all the information on these questions that I was going to get I looked at my options. I had served a SARN on them and received reams of info back from them. I found a few areas where they had acted inappropriately and knew that if I did let it go to court I could probably get off lightly. However, my court time was already quite high due to a divorce settlement and I figured that if I could get a settlement with the Halifax it would save me a few more grey hairs. I always refused their requests to telephone them.

Q. Did you deal directly with the Halifax or with a third party such as Direct Legal & Collections?

A. I dealt with the Halifax property unit, every response came from a higher ranked officer, until I finally had the name of the department manager.

Q. Did you use a solicitor as an intermediary?

A. No.

Q. How did you make an offer without accepting liability for the debt?

A. I used the standard letters given on the Home Repo pages and modified/added to them to further reinforce my denial of liability. I also had standard letters from the National Debtline. The gist is that it is a goodwill gesture or ex-gratia payment to settle the dispute, without accepting liability and with a few conditions of your own added eg. mark the mortgage lenders register entryies as 'satisfied', no further comebacks etc.

Q. You say that Halifax have 'cleared' the Experian and Equifax registries but the home repo site says that CIFAS seem to keep details of repossessees for much longer. I would be very interested to know how you get on with finding a new mortgage because I'm hoping to do the same myself soon.

A. I am not totally sure that I have cleared the registries - I have had the repossession entries marked as 'Satisfied'. If anybody can tell me more about the implictations of this entry I would be grateful.

-- Good Luck (moovanon@ntlworld.com), April 22, 2002.

Terry Thanks for your response. I have had a quick look through your website which makes very interesting reading. Well done in all your endeavours. What I couldn't find was: a) How did you manage to get your CRF records cleared? My records say 'Repossession Voluntary' Satisfied - 'Yes'. Is this as good as I can expect, or is it possible to get it deleted from the file completely? If so, how do you do it? b) You said the lenders wanted to see a letter from the A/N. Would they have lent on this basis or was it just a bluff to send you away again? c) Your mortgage I believe is with the Halifax. Obviously, I cannot approach them. Did your IFA get positive vibes from any other high street lenders willing to lend at normal rates? Any assistance will be greatly appreciated. P.S. Your email address does not work for me!

-- Good Luck (moovanon@ntlworld.com), April 22, 2002.

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply so fully to my questions. The replies you have given should help many of us in similar situations trying to achieve closure. Hope you manage to find a new mortgage without hassle

-- Gordon Bennet (arsenewhinger@hotmail.com), April 23, 2002.