I'll try to keep this succinct but can provide further information if something isn't clear.
About 10 years ago my husband was involved in a very successful business and we were in a financial position to build a house. We got a mortgage to do this and then for various other reasons got a second loan secured against this property.
However, working with the partners he had was incredibly stressful for my husband and this had a knock on effect on family life so we decided that we would tighten our belts and he would leave the partnership and work on his own (he's in the recruitment industry).
He was slowly building his business up, money was tight but we were managing. However in 2019 he became very unwell and it took months to figure out what was wrong. He had major surgery and the recovery was slow. We had some financial difficulties and had exhausted our savings so paying the mortgage was difficult. Our main/ first lender was sympathetic and allowed us a payment holiday, but the second lender was incredibly aggressive (I get that they want their money) and wouldn't accept anything less than the full arrears payments so my mum lent us the money to cover them. CoVID then hit and my husbands business took a hammering when it was already barely paying the bills so we built up arrears on both mortgages. Long story short the second charge lender took us to court and eventually there was a decree granted against us. We were served notice to leave in the summer and were assessed as being statutory homeless so have been lucky to be given temporary accommodation by our council. It has been an incredibly stressful time but we are all now much happier. We were under the impression that the house would be sold and the proceeds would hopefully cover both of the mortgages.
At the beginning of the week we got a letter from the second lender's solicitor informing us that they have 'been instructed by our clients to register a Deed of Disburdenment over our client's security over the security subjects. This means that X bank is relinquishing any rights arising from it's security and they will abandon possession of the security subjects '.
It goes on to say that we should reinsure the property (which we have done), that we can call them to arrange collection of the keys and that if we have any queries we should seek our own legal advice. We have tried 13 different solicitors now and none seem to be able to help- many have never heard of this being done and can't offer advice as it isn't in their area of expertise. Google doesn't shed any light on it either. Does anyone know what this means or can point us in the direction of clear legal advice? I'm not sure what to do and what the implications are for the debt- does the loan now effectively become 'unsecured'?
We contacted the first lender who are as baffled as us. We now have large arrears on this loan as we stopped paying once we knew repossession was a foregone conclusion. The first company had a court date after the second company had the decree granted and were told they couldn't get a decree as there already was one in place, but now that looks like it will be removed we expect them to go back and be granted a decree so the house will still be repossessed (and I have no energy or money to try to save it- it might be financially possible but we would have to live incredibly frugally for years and none of us wants to). Has anyone ever heard of this and can offer advice or suggest where we can get legal advice (I have returned to work full time and husband's business is in a better place so we can afford proper legal advice, we just can't find anyone who can help).
Sorry that was so long, i didn't want to miss anything relevant out. Also, we are in Scotland but company is in England so I assume is governed by English law.