Halifax rejected payment holiday! what can i do?

Helga14

I think that the bank are right not to give you a payment holiday for this reason. You'll have a mortgage till your 80 if you take breaks all the time for relatively small bills. You need to get yourself an emergency stash of savings so that you can pay unexpected bills without too much hassle. Ideally enough money to last you 3-6 months of bills/mortage etc in case the worse happens and you lose your job. Goodluck with it. You could maybe try to pay it on a 0% interest credit card and then pay it off monthly before you are charged any interest.

uzubairu

Helga14 wrote: »

I think that the bank are right not to give you a payment holiday for this reason. You'll have a mortgage till your 80 if you take breaks all the time for relatively small bills. You need to get yourself an emergency stash of savings so that you can pay unexpected bills without too much hassle. Ideally enough money to last you 3-6 months of bills/mortage etc in case the worse happens and you lose your job.

I agree, but I think the OP is a long way off being able to do that at present.

Helga14 wrote: »

You could maybe try try to pay it on a 0% interest card and then pay it off monthly before you are charged any interest

Would a credit card company see you as a good risk?
I'm assuming that you have considered using a credit card before resorting to such a drastic measure as a payment holiday for such routine household expenditure.

Trillionaire

Have you applied for a Virgin credit card? It's 0% for 16 months. It has a 3% fee (or 2.98% - semantics) but maybe being able to repay the £500 this way would be of help?

Gorgeous_George

The mortgage or rent should be the first thing that you pay. Car MOTs are a long way down the list.

Can you get the work done cheaper elsewhere? Or do it yourself?

GG

sodapop1982

Good Morning, firstly thanks to everyone who posted constructive comments. we know our finances are in a mess My husband was made redundant and took a pay cut to get back in the job market he is 2 years away from earning his MCSE so will then hopefully be earning more money. And I am only working part time as i look after our 18 month old daughter, again within the next 2 years I will be returning to work full time.

So the situation is we have a monthly budget which is very tight leaving us about £20 a week spending money, This includes savings for car costs however the MOT was £500 more than expected a major unforseen expense.

Altogether after the mot we are now £1200 into our overdraft, this is not entirley the mot as before we made our budget we were overspending. We have an Egg card with £2000 and a barclaycard with £4000 credit limits all of which have 0 balance on.

We had thought of doing a balance transfer to one of the cards to clear the overdraft but this is just moving the debt short term and would increase monthly out goings. What we wanted to do was take a 2 month mortgage holiday to get us back to 0 and go from there as our situation is relativley short term as explained earlier. Maybe just doing a balance transfer is the best option??

Also to Trollfever and Dunstonh who made the following posts

"Houses being used to fund the cost of a MOT!

Next thing will be people wanting to use houses to fund the cost of a holiday"
"I will add the ironic smilie for you.... - there you go"

You are supposed to be respected members of this forum maybe be a bit more helpfull rather than take the mickey?? I came on here for help and instead your comments really upset me. Think before you speak next time we are real people posting about real issues that are affeccting our lives.

This is a big problem on this website of people feeling they are better than everyone else and have to put them down as being stupid!!

Any constructive comments more than welcome!!

beecher

I think the best advice you've had on here is to go to the Debt Free Wannabee site and get help on cutting your budget so as you have more than £20/week spending money over the next 2 years.

Good luck with it.

silvercar

You came on here for help. The answer you received is that the lender does not have to give you a mortgage holiday and that you should prioritise your mortgage over other payments.

Straight forward advice that you really should follow. Even one late mortgage payment on your credit record could affect your chances of a decent mortgage rate in the future.

If you don't like the tone of some of the replies then you have to take that risk when posting on a public forum. Don't let it upset you. Take the advice and move on.

Best of luck!

Pooky23

I can totally sympathise with you with regards to the unexpected repair bill. I got one for over £800 recently for my car:eek:!! I do budget each month and put money aside to cover all car related expenses but not enough for this unexpected bill. Fortunately I have other savings I can use and a credit card with a low interest rate, so whilst incovenient and unwelcome it is not the end of the world.

I would not recommend you take a payment holiday from your mortgage just to get your car thru its MOT. Your lender is doing the responsible thing by refusing your request. Can you borrow from a sympathetic family member or friend??

LittleMissAspie

opinions4u wrote: »

It is rather foolish to expect a car over 3 years old to sail through its MOT at a cost of £50.

You know, that makes me really sad. Why is poor quality both expected and accepted these days? Three years is nothing, cars should last for decades. I would absolutely expect a three year old car to still be in good working order.

I'm always astounded when I hear of people buying newer cars because it's cheaper to spend thousands on a newer car than to keep and repair the old one. It's all so wasteful.

opinions4u

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

You know, that makes me really sad. Why is poor quality both expected and accepted these days? Three years is nothing, cars should last for decades. I would absolutely expect a three year old car to still be in good working order.

I'm always astounded when I hear of people buying newer cars because it's cheaper to spend thousands on a newer car than to keep and repair the old one. It's all so wasteful.

Depends on a number of factors really.

1) Emissions rules may mean the exhaust has to be replaced even if it's in good working order.

2) Maintaining a car through regular servicing has always cost money, but usually proves cost effedctive at preventing some repair bills.

3) The way roads are maintained can lead to higher repair bills.

4) The way a car has been driven can lead to higher repair bills.

It's not as straight forward as "bad workmanship". No idea if the OP mentioned 3 years. The thing may be 20 years old for all I know.

While sympathetic to the OP, the reality has always been that cars cost money to run and maintain.