Mortgage Break / Other Options help

DaveE_3

Hi,
I currently have mortgage with the Abbey. Wife is on maternity leave and for final 3 months of her year off gets no salary. She has been on 66% of salary for first 9 months of maternity break. We have been able to cover our monthly payment on this amount. However, when she gets £0 for 3 months it is going to be pretty tight / almost impossible. She goes back to work full time in Jan to previous role and once again from then payment will be fine.

Spoke to Abbey and the person was less that helpful :mad: ! Was pretty black and white that as i wasnt on a flexible mortgage taking a payment holiday was not an option. They didnt give me any other sort of advice / options ?

Does anyone have any ideas / other options I could pursue ?
What happens if we dont pay for those 3 months - pretty bad consequences I imagine but not sure exactly what

Any input welcome !
Cheers:beer:
Dave

minimike2

Have you any savings?

How much is your monthly mortgage payment and what will the monthly income be?

DaveE_3

No savings at the moment as just done a loft conversion on the house. Thats a whole different story as due to totally incompetent architect it cost us 35k more than original quote - hence no saving. Trying to get anywhere with a claim on that is a maze. No money to pursue through solicitor. Even no win no fee is 5-7k to get started ! Nightmare

Anyway - back to mortgage

Monthly income jointly from wife and I is c£5k. Both on c£55k per year. We are paying £1500 per month on the mortgage.

Cheers
Dave

minimike2

So when she has no income, what will your net monthly income be?

Do you have loans / credit cards / kids?

DaveE_3

Income down to £2800 when wife goes down to zero.

Have £4k on a credit card which is on a 0% balance transfer until Feb/March'09. Small car loan of <4k.

1 kid. 7month old - hence maternity leave.

minimike2

Well I dont know what your lifestyle is like, but looking at those figures I dont see why the mortgage should become impossible to pay.

Is the payment interest only or capaital and interest? You could pay them a fee to change it to interest only if it isnt already, then pay them a fee again to revert it to repayment when your wife is back to work. Really I would suggest you sit down and do a full budget planner and work out where the money goes each month, and make cut backs on that...its not going to be forever afer all.

DaveE_3

Lifestlye isnt crazy (wish it was)!

The 2800 is take home and what we have for whole month. Needs to cover everything (loans, food, mortgage, utilities, insurance etc..).

Already on interest only unfortuantely.

You're right on full budget. Started that yesterday. Amazing where it all goes

minimike2

Ok - Take your budget then - list your essentials in one column and non-essentials in another.

Is there anything in the non-essentials that it is possible to live without for the three months to make up the difference that you need?

Apart from getting another 0% card with a cash transfer facility, which is not ideal, or asking your bank for an overdraft, I cant think of much else that will help you. Maybe family could help? Could your wife return to work early? Abbey wont be interested unless you miss a payment, then they might look to make an arragement with you, but that will reap havoc on your credit file.

happybroker

by hook or etc you need to make the mortgage payments for those 3 months, not doing so will cause you major problems.

can you not apply for an overdraft or something similar to cover. The interest on that short term debt will be much easier to swallow than the problems 3 months mortgage arrears would be when you come to switch/ move/ apply for credit again etc etc

DaveE_3

Sure we'll find a way. Will be tight, very tight, but will cope. Doesnt look like an easy way round it but didnt think there would be !

Not paying and getting bad credit rating was never going to be an option. I've tried writing to abbey to explain the background more as the person on the phone was less than helpful and was very black and white. Will see what comes back.

Thanks for inputs.
Cheers
Dave