Hi there

I moved back to the UK in early 2007 and have had my apartment on the market ever since. I cannot sell it and it has cost me an absolute fortune, as I have been subsiding from the UK. It has got to the stage where I cannot see any other solution than declaring myself bankrupt and posting the keys to the mortgage company. I have had two offers in two years, both were significantly less than I paid for the property 7 years ago. I have run up a ridiculous debt with ABN Amro in addition to the mortgage, so now owe the mortage company and the bank more money than I am every likely to have acess to.

Can anyone tell me what will be the effect of me just stopping all payments?
Will the mortage company foreclose? Is there any benefit to proactively declaring bankruptcy, or just leaving it to them to sort out.
What is the bank likely to do? Is there any benefit to me declaring bankruptcy?
The bank has my UK home address but my mortgage company don't.
I need to know what effect there could be on my situation in the UK, where I also own my home. That is my biggest concern at this point.

I have let it go on so long without doing anything, but it has now got to the point where I cannot support one debt with another anymore and I need to get myself out of this stupid situation. Please don't judge me. I feel bad enough for not dealing with it before now, I don't need telling I should have done something earlier. I just desperately need some advice.
Thanks

I am not a lawyer, and the details of a cross-border bankruptcy are likely to be extremely hairy, but in the Netherlands, generally speaking, there's rarely anything to gain by declaring bankruptcy.

There's no benefit to 'mailing in the keys'. If a foreclosure sale of your house yields 50.000 euros less than the debt remaining in the mortgage, you are then in debt for that amount. Furthermore, the mortgage company will see that amount as an unsecured loan by a foreign national--and raise the interest rate accordingly. They may not know your address, but I doubt the channel will keep them from trying to collect their money.

But there are also other possibilities. You may have taken out a mortgage with NHG (Nationale Hypotheek Garantie), which means (part of) your remaining mortgage debt can be struck away in case of hardship. It may be possible to shuffle your consumptive debt under your UK mortgage, lowering the interest rates.

From the way you describe your situation, bankruptcy (including liquidation of your house in the UK) seems like a likely outcome, but it's possible the banks are willing to offer you something slightly better. Contact your banks. You're likely to talk to them a lot more in the future, anyway. And good luck.

Just do a runner?

You are never coming back to Holland anyway?

You shouldhave spoken to the bank earlier to negotiate new terms that you could live with and they can handle.
A dutch friend of mine had this situation, where she came up wtih a payment plan, unloaded her property and signicantly reduced the bill by the simple fact that she didn't have the money and they were never going to get unles they worked with her and they figured it out.