Any alternative to re-mortgaging?

help0708

My wife and I are planning to remortgage to get our unsecured debts onto sane interest rates, but before doing so I thought I'd ask on here if any other course of action was worth thinking about.

Situation is as follows:

Value of house approx £135,000
Total debts inc mortgage £107,300

Debt break down:

Joint Mortgage - £13,000
Joint unsecured - £4,800
Unsecured in my name - £76,800
Unsecured in wife's name - £12,700

Me: Age 52, on Incapacity Benefit of £4,500
Wife: Age 50, salary of £20,500
Our children are all independent adults.

Other factors:

- wife works in local government, bankruptcy is a dismissable offence
- wife is expecting a backdated 20% pay rise within a few months.
- most of our plastic has been used at one time or another for betting, though this is not the main cause of our situation (and I've got the spreadsheets to prove it!)
- I have lied about my employment status and income on credit applications, most recently 2 years ago.
- we are owed a few £k by the tax man and by our ex-student daughter

Re-mortgaging or selling and renting seem like the least stressful, if not the only, options, but I'd be very grateful for any thoughts on alternatives.

southernscouser

Hello mate! :hello:

First things first welcome to MSE and the DFW board! :beer:

You've come to the right place!

Consolidating debts can be the best option but there are alot of dangers, especially with remortgaging. Firstly there is the fact you are turning unsecured debt in to secured debt. Failure to pay could result in you losing your home.

The other problem with consolidating is if you haven't addressed the initial problem then you aren't curing it, you're just masking it.

You need to get your budget under control so your income exceeds your expenditure.

If you post a SOA (see this thread for an explanation/guide) we will be able to advise you much better.