anyone a lawyer or solicitor here?? need advice regarding a charging order on my house.

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I really need some advice as i have received a letter from solicitors stating they have applied to put a charge on my property for a fine i had to pay.

The letter states i need to attend court on 8th dec 2009. Is there anyway i can stop this as i am willing to pay, but not in one go. i can pay the £4,000 in instalments.

I am so scared and worried what will happen to my home, will i loose my home on the 8th dec 2009?? what does charge on the property really mean.

I would be grateful for any advice.

Have you spoken to the solicitors? If you are prepared to pay instalments, why has it reached this point?

A charge will show on the land registry files (where mortgages show) and means if/when you sell the house they can take the money due to them.

Even if you go to court, I doubt they will take your house away for £4,000 so try not to worry about that. They will probably make an order that you pay the money by instalments anyway.

I'm not a lawyer (have a law degree though) but I am speaking more from personal experience. This must be very stressful for you.

Thank you for your reply....Yes it is very stressfull. If i spoke with the solicitors before the hearing date and agree to pay half now and the other half in 2 instalments, do you think that would be acceptable? are lawyers willing to do this?

Definitely go to court on 8th Dec. Take a list of your income/expenditure and documents to back this up, eg payslips. Don't forget the income/expenses of anyone else in the household, eg your DP/DH/other adults.

The judge will probably order you to pay by instalments, and may or may not back them up with a charging order as well.

like washersaurus says, the charging order means that the money would be payable in ful if/when the house was sold.

If you didn't keep up the instalments, then the court could make an order that the house has to be sold, but you would get lots of warning about this before it could happen.

sorry, x-posted.

your offer sounds very attractive and IME they would be likely to agree to this.
but can you really afford it?

court orders for instalments often allow months for people to pay. It all depends what you can afford, and it depends what it would mean for you to have a charging order on your house.

TBH it may be that any effect on your credit status has already happened, as presumably there must have been a judgement for the charging order to be happening.

Why did it get to this situation ?

I was made redundant from my job this year and it made it very difficult, to pay and keep up with daily bills and mortagage.

Thank you for your replies.