Any advice please....having nightmare with joint mortgage and ex husband

astep70uk

My husband moved out of the family home in Feb 08 and left myself to bring up 2 young children. He paid a pittance towards the mortgage up until June 07 but hasn't paid a penny since then. We have a decent amount of equity in the house (roughly 115k) and the mortgage is interest only.
I have been managing the payments fine on my own...haven't missed any, and was ahead with my payments in December 08.
The biulding society requires us to both sign a form every 3 months allowing us to keep the mortgage as Interest only.

Just before Christmas my husband refused to sign his form as he hates the thought of me and the children living in the house and basically said he'd rather it was reposessed.

Now the building society are aware of my situation, but in their wisdom put the mortgage back up to a repayment term in Dec 08 (can they actually do this??), which is £300 a month more....and obviously as a single parent I can't afford this.

On Saturday I had a letter to say that I was in arrears by £1800 and the sum had to be paid immediately.

So what I am asking is:

1. Can the biulding society actually just change the product sold to us from Interest only to repayment?

2. Is there anything to protect me personally from bad credit, as i haven't missed any payments, but could face reposession because my ex husband won't sign the form?

3. If the house is reposessed, and bearing in mind the amount of capital in it, will I actually come out of it with anything?

What are the next steps I can take?? I'm getting really desperate now and any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

beecher

1. Since they required you to sign a form every 3 months in order to remain interest only, then I'd guess they are allowed to change if that form isn't signed.

2. But surely you have missed payments as you're in arrears?

Could you sell up? Surely your husband would prefer to get his half of any remaining equity than watch it being repossessed?

astep70uk

beecher wrote: »

1.
2. But surely you have missed payments as you're in arrears?

No...i haven't missed any payment. We did both sign forms before Christmas and sent them back, but the building society says they didn't receive them....hence on paper it looks like we have arrears of £1800. They've assured me that if my husband signs his form, then they'll clear the so-called arrears and drop it back down to Interest only terms. Its just getting him to sign! The house is currently on the market and has been for a year now....the only option I have is to start dropping the price

beecher

If the house hasn't sold over the past year then yes, you'll definitely need to drop the price.

You say your husband signed the form, but also say he refused to sign it, so I'm a bit confused. If he's refusing to sign it, then you're on repayment, and in arrears.

Are you sure that the lender are still willing to clear the arrears now that they've started to take action and are demanding the money?

You need to get professional advice I think, but first thing to do is to slash the price of your house to get things moving. Take 20% off the peak price as a starting point.