Can northern rock put a charging order on my property?
No, it isn’t. There are quite a few steps to go through first. NR would have to obtain a court judgement against you for any sums due. Provided that you made a reasonable offer to pay off the sum due within a reasonable time, that would pretty much be that. A charging order is a means of enforcing the debt, and operates in exactly the same way as a mortgage. This would involve NR making a further application to the court for the charging order which, like a divorce, comes in two stages – nisi and absolute. The court has to be convinced that this is appropriate for NR to have – and you can say your piece at the time. The only time that this can be avoided is if the original loan papers permitted NR to make application straight to the Land Registry for a charge. But this seems unlikely, as the loan would then be secured and the charge (mortgage) would already be in place. At the moment, it is likely that they are only threatening to make an application.
