Has anyone sold their house and been left with residual debt from negative equity?

OnlyWayIsUp

I know that if people on here have gone through such difficulties they might have signed confidentiality clauses so obviously I don't want folk to breach that but...

Does anyone know what kind of deal a bank might be willing to do with the residual debt after they've pushed people to sell their house?

I know that it all depends on affordability and how much people can afford but does anyone have anecdotal evidence on what they are doing?

Would a bank be willing to write-off 70%-80% of the residual debt in certain circumstances or would the amount be far far less than that?

OnlyWayIsUp

Does nobody even know of any anecdotal stories they can share?

tonyj_mc

They make everyone sign a non disclosure agreement before even discussing some of the forbearance options, so you won't get many responses.

Also just to point out the idea of writing off debt in this country is still very alien and there is no requirement on the bank to offer this as a solution, they can offer it as a solution at their discretion, but they don't have to offer it all and can just put the left over debt on to a long term loan

professore

Can they force a deal on you? Can you not threaten bankruptcy if you don't like it - and let's face it, debt free in 3 years is far better than carrying a debt around for 20+ years?

Arthur Beesley

In most cases there is no reason for the bank to write off.

In 3 - 5 years much of the negative equity will probably have disappeared, and unemployment will have dropped, so why should the bank take an unnecessary loss in the short term as opposed to waiting it out in the medium term if they can?