House repossession is bound to happen if you fall behind paying your rent or mortgage payments. Your lender can claim house repossession even if you are just a few instalments behind. House repossession can turn out to be a very traumatic experience especially if you are facing a difficult situation like death, divorce, unemployment etc. But then most of those who could not afford to pay their instalments on time must be undergoing some sort of hardship. You should act immediately when you know that you could be facing house repossession as most of them facing such a situation tend to ignore it until they are faced with even worse situation. It always best to seek professional help as soon as house repossession proceedings are initiated against you.

Notification

As a first step you will receive a notification by post, which is a claims form from the mortgagor, landlord or lender. The notification will contain details about the description of the property, the jurisdiction of the court, the outstanding amount that you should pay to the landlord or mortgagor etc. So never delay in accepting the letter once you receive it.

Even if you have sent your reply to the claims form you may still be required to appear before the court to answer the questions that may be posed to you. If you present your case well and show reasonable reasons for the delay in paying your instalments the judge may grant a suspended possession order. This means you will be allowed to stay in your home provided you pay the rents on time and also the arrears due within the stipulated time.  

Court proceedings

In case you do not make out your case properly and the judge has every reason to believe that it would be impossible for you to continue paying the monthly instalments as well as the arrears then the judge will issue a house repossession order.
However, house repossession order is not the end of everything as you still may have time to prevent it. You could still have time before the house repossession order is enforced. It may also turn out that by the time the order is enforced you may be able to pay the arrears however this is quite rare. Always remember that the lenders are not interested in your property but only want their money back.
Most of the lenders sell the houses repossessed for whatever amount they can get and in the process do not succeed in recovering the complete amount. In such cases the insolvent home owner has to bear the increasing interest and debt even after the sale of the property. Likewise if there is any surplus amount from the auction then it will be paid back to you after recovering all the cost incurred by the lender.
In case you are sure that you could afford to pay the amount then the court will stay the house repossession proceedings. On the contrary, if you still cannot repay the amount you will be given time to vacate the premises.