In a bit of a mortgage pickle

angeleclair

Hi all

This is only my second post so hopefully i'm doing it right. I'm going to try and be brief as this could get very complicated... :rotfl:

I'm currently living in a flat in Tottenham that i bought feb 2007 with my then boyfriend. We broke up in Nov 2008. At that time he was due to stay and i was due to go to Leeds. He agreed to take in a lodger but if there was ever any difficulty i said i would keep my end of the bargain and pay my share of the mortgage. He pulled out of this arrangement literally at the last minute and told me he wanted to go for voluntary reposession. I refused saying we would be massively in debt (total trough of housing market) and agreed that i would stay and take in a lodger. I never made him stay away from the flat, he moved out out of choice and still has keys.

I went onto interest only payments (our mortgage is very high, we got it when Northern Rock were giving them out like sweets) and took in a lodger (who still didn't cover his half - about £100 pm shy). This arrangement worked fine until March this year when the lodger moved out and the interest only period finished. I haven't been able to find another lodger and my ex has refused to pay anything. He also refused to pay half the fee to find another lodger (only £6 but it's the principle).

We've agreed that the best thing to do would be to sell it and it's been on the market a couple of weeks (lots of viewings but no offers). However this means i'm stuck here until we sell, i currently have no lodger and Northern Rock have just refused to extend the interest only period. This means i'm paying £1137 in mortgage fees and i earn £1380 after tax. The figures simply do not add up!!!!! :eek: they have stated that the reasons are the LTVratio and that i have a lot of disposable income?!?! i'm not sure £243 for food, travel and bills per month is a lot of disposable income...hah

To cap it all Northern Rock have sent us a letter out of the blue stating that i'm not allowed to have a lodger. It seems as if they are treating me incredibly unfairly and putting me in a position where all i can do is not make the payments. I've taken a 3 month payment holiday (May, June, July) until this is sorted out and am praying we have an offer on our flat and things are underway by then.

PHEW...that was so long. I suppose i'm basically asking 1) anything i can do about Northern Rock being so unreasonable and 2) anything i can do about the ex being unreasonable?!?

Any advice would be much appreciated if you made it to the end!

Chinkle

Is your ex totally aware of his responsibilities? I don't see why you should be carrying the can alone. In this market it could be ages before you sell.

I would be saying that you can't afford payments and intend to start defaulting on your JOINT commitments and let him know that means he will get a black mark too on his credit record.