how do I get help with my mortgage?

allotment_owner

Due to change of circs, I may need to be solely responsible for my mortgage. I am not working, I am a carer for daughter on high DLA. I understand that I may get help with mortgage "interest". My mortgage is currently repayment, so would I need to change it to interest only?
Just taking baby steps here and need to know.
Thanks.

kelloggs36

You may be able to claim income support which can help earlier than the normal 9 months of waiting, in certain circumstances.

Oldernotwiser

Whenever you become eligible, you'll need to contact your lender to change your mortgage to interest only.

LittleTinker

You do not need to change your mortgage to intrest only at all!

Whether you are a repayment mortgage or not, you still pay interest every month and you will only get help with the Interest. They will not pay it all either.

It is calculated on who lives there and the average help with housing benefits.

So....if you are currently paying £1500 a month in interest.....they would only pay about a third of that.

They also do not pay anything for 30 odd weeks.....or, 24 (i think) if you have special circumstances.

Oldernotwiser

LittleTinker wrote: »

You do not need to change your mortgage to intrest only at all!

Whether you are a repayment mortgage or not, you still pay interest every month and you will only get help with the Interest. They will not pay it all either.

It is calculated on who lives there and the average help with housing benefits.

So....if you are currently paying £1500 a month in interest.....they would only pay about a third of that.

They also do not pay anything for 30 odd weeks.....or, 24 (i think) if you have special circumstances.

Well, of course you don't HAVE to change to interest only but most people on benefits need to do this in order to survive. If you can afford to pay the repayment element out of your benefits you can do so but most people couldn't afford this.

£1,500 per month interest would indicate an enormous mortgage, which makes it a pretty poor example.

kimlet65

If you make a claim for Income Support, they may help you with the interest part of your mortgage. If your mortgage was taken out after 1995, there is a 39 week waiting period (I think that's correct). They will then pay the interest part of your mortgage but using their own interest calculation, which may not be the same interest rate as you're actually paying.

If you are unable to claim income support, you may be able to get help with your mortgage earlier than 39 weeks.

allotment_owner

lol!£1500 a month interst? I live in Essex...
my mortgage is aprox for £60,000 on a house (was worth about £139,000 but before recent falls!). The current deal is fixed til 2011 with northern rock on a self-cert repayment basis- £495 a month. Hopefully interest only will be a bit less....
Think I would qualify for earlier help due to DLA (have read 50% after 8 weeks, then blah blah blah....)

We started off with interest only and a mortgage isa which we kept going even though we changed to repayment.

What if this wasn'tstill in place? surely if you can only pay interest, the mortgage co would make you take out an isa or endowment? Or would they just assume they'd get the house in the end?

I have husband problems and he may be heading off.

Oldernotwiser

allotment_owner wrote: »

What if this wasn'tstill in place? surely if you can only pay interest, the mortgage co would make you take out an isa or endowment? Or would they just assume they'd get the house in the end?

That's about right. We cashed in our ISA after only a few months and nobody asked or cared.

zappster1966

Carers are exempt from the 39 week waiting period & can get help from 8 weeks onwards.

Conor_3

Just to add a comment about the "may need to be solely responsible for your mortgage. I take it you may be splitting with your OH? AFAIK they'll only pay you the interest on the mortgage if it's in your name or only pay a percentage of it if it's in joint names.

allotment_owner

Right. It's in joint names.So this means that he would need to sign over the house to me?