78 year old mother struggling with debt

Ineedadrink · 27 July 2015 at 6:54PM

Hi firstly a little about the situation.

My mother now 78 had worked all her life until a near fatal medical condition nearly killed her about 5 years ago.

She never had any debt before this but now she is in a very bad place and can't sleep for the worry, anyway here is what's happened.

She owns a house that was payed off and in her wisdom she decided to buy another to rent out so she took an intrest only mortgage about 7 years ago putting her house up as security to get this second house.

Then 2 years later took I'll and lost her income from work and the rent on second house was only just covering the mortgage.

Then in her wisdom when she started to recover to an extent from her illness she got a 12K personal loan from Barclays.I was mad at her for doing this as she only had her old age pension to live on but she says as she lives out of town and needs a car. What sort of bank manager would sanction a 12K loan to a pensioner living of only a bloody state pension?

Anyway the tenant's in the rented property moved out and the property is up for sale but with no income from it she is now in trouble with the bank.

She has talked to the bank but they are not being very helpful in the situation and saying they can't pay her DDS anymore, She is paying nearly every penny of her pension into the bank weekly but the DDS are more than her income.

I have tried to help with money where I can but I'm not in a great position myself only keeping my head above water and I'm worried sick about this whole situation.

To make matters worse my mother is loosing her memory possible onset of Alzheimers

Any advise will be gratefully received thanks in advance

National_Debtline · 27 July 2015 at 7:37PM

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I won't try to offer comprehensive advice here as there seems to be a lot going on. One or two important pieces of advice to heed for now:

As the rental property is now vacant and up for sale, it may be best to explore some kind of payment break with the lender. As it is on the market anyway, chances are that the lender would be better off letting it sell of its own accord than forcing a repossession because of arrears.

Your mother needs to start getting her pension income paid into a bank she has no debts with. I am willing to guess that she currently banks with Barclays, as that is where she borrowed £12K from. Putting to one side for now the question of how/why she was offered this loan, it needs to be treated as a "non priority" at present and any payments towards it stopped as soon as possible.

I agree that it's not realistic for you to keep financially supporting your mother. The best you can do by her is to get her free, independent advice before things escalate further. Given the complexity of the matter, I would urge you to contact one of the free advice charities, whether that be us, Stepchange, Citizens Advice or another.

Also, given what you say re: possible onset of Alzheimer's, I would strongly recommend you look into obtaining power of attorney as things could get much more complicated if your mother loses her mental capacities altogether.

https://www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney

As a final aside, your post may receive more attention if you give it a clearer title e.g. "78 year old mother struggling with debts". I'm not sure if you can edit the title of your thread - maybe someone else can confirm this?

Dennis
@natdebtline

Ineedadrink · 27 July 2015 at 11:01PM

Hi and thanks for the advice I can't seem to edit title.

I will talk to her dr about her mental state and take it from there about POE

I will ask her if she is comfortable with me dealing with this and contacting one of the free charity helplines as I didn't know such a thing was a available so thanks again for advice it's much appreciated.

Anoneemoose · 27 July 2015 at 11:12PM

If you can't edit, maybe just do another post but copy and paste your first post from here.

Most people are curious and will look anyway but if you find you don't get much response, it might help. I don't have much to offer really in the way of advice but you will get lots of support here.

fatbelly · 27 July 2015 at 11:24PM

You can edit the title

Go to the first post

Press edit

Press 'go advanced'

National_Debtline · 28 July 2015 at 4:41PM

Ineedadrink wrote: »

Hi and thanks for the advice I can't seem to edit title.

I will talk to her dr about her mental state and take it from there about POE

I will ask her if she is comfortable with me dealing with this and contacting one of the free charity helplines as I didn't know such a thing was a available so thanks again for advice it's much appreciated.

Please note that the advice charities won't need to know any of your mother's personal details before they can offer you advice, just an outline of the situation and any facts/figures you can give them. Even if she's not comfortable with the idea, I would go ahead and call them anyway - free advice can only help you here.

Dennis
@natdebtline

78 year old mother struggling with debt

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