Advice please! Coventry won't accept our proposed repayments

Cash4questions

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated on this! We have fallen behind with our mortgage repayments and had made an arrangement to pay back £700 per month (normal payment is £642). Although for the most part we have managed this we have missed one and only paid part for a couple of months. The arrears on the mortgage now stand at £3315.

They have written to us this last week saying that unless the arrears are paid in full or the agreement brought up to date they will instruct their solicitors to commence legal proceedings to recover what is outstanding. At the moment there is no mention of repossesion.

I have rung the Coventry this morning and proposed to pay them £800 per month in weekly installments - we can pay more now because I have recently received a pay rise which sees my weekly pay double, but paying weekly is easier for us as my husband is paid weekly.

They would not accept this saying that we needed to pay them £1900 by December 1st! I told them this was not possible but they said it would then go to a court order. They were not helpful and didn't really seem to be listening.

So what can we do? We are offering to pay them more than the monthly repayment and more than the previous arrangement. At the moment I am trying to compose a letter to them to try to sort it out but am unsure of where we stand.

Cannon_Fodder

Unfortunately, you have already been unable to keep to a previous arrangement, on 3 separate occasions.

It would take 21 months to clear the arrears, in the plan you suggest. Without factoring in the extra interest you will accrue. I'm not sure its reasonable to ask Coventry to subsidise you for such a long period.

If it was a plan to clear the arrears in say 6 months, perhaps they'd view it differently - but that would require £552 extra i.e. a total per month of £1,200. Which is presumably not doable?


You can try asking to go interest only - they may have said yes when you weren't in arrears, and may not now, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Have you looked into whether you qualify for any of the support schemes?

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/ManagingDebt/DebtsAndArrears/DG_10013261

Various contact points in the link, too.

CrashUK

You could get a loan to pay it off. I think £4000 is about £130 pm over 3 years.

But the bank should be doing every thing it can to help you.

Cash4questions

Hi, thanks for the reply. I hear what you are saying and we are not in the best position to negotiate with them, but we are not saying we cannot pay and we are offering to pay them more. Interestingly the balance on the mortgage including the arrears is the same as when we first took the mortgage out 3 years ago. Could we have a case to ask them to add the arrears back in and then recalculate the repayments based on the remaining term? Northern Rock have done this for us with a loan we have with them.

We can up the repayments further but not right before Christmas! We will also be coming into some money next year but I am not going into that here.

DVardysShadow

Cash4questions wrote: »

... We can up the repayments further but not right before Christmas! We will also be coming into some money next year but I am not going into that here.

Postpone christmas? Or cut it right down. I would think it would be a happier christmas on bread and dripping, knowing you can keep your home than having all the trimmings but knowing you will lose it.

TighterThanTwoCoatsOfPain

Cash4questions wrote: »

We can up the repayments further but not right before Christmas!

Thats brilliant.. you lose much of my sympathy if you let buying presents come before paying the mortgage.

If the children (i presume?) are too young to understand why, then they are also so young that theu dont need hundreds spending on them. surely?

Trollfever

Visit the Debt Free Wannabee Board. You will get lots of [[[hugs]].

Back in 2006 we remortgaged our house in Wales as our current deal had come to an end. We wanted to increase the mortgage to get rid of a £50k secured debt consolidation loan we had taken out.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=13942259&highlight=#post13942259




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