Should we leave the house vacant??

calusari

My partner and I have had a really hard time over the last year or so, Im sure a lot of other people have too, its not just us.

We live in a three bed house that we can no longer afford to live in.

I lost my fulltime job last August and even though I am getting plenty of interviews I hear nothing back. My boyfriend is working 40 hours per week for a rubbish wage, hes making 14k per year and we are no longer living, we are barely surviving.

We put the house up for sale 2 weeks ago but the house still needs things doing to it which we cant afford to do (painting, 2 new doors, grouting etc, nothing major but when you dont have the money it feels like the end of the world.)

My boyfriend got paid last friday, we went to the bank to draw out money for the food shopping, and it wouldnt let us take money out, apparently we are £300 overdrawn already, we had to buy heating oil so thats why, it was either freeze to death or eat. We now have three weeks to go without any money.

We are moving from Northern Ireland to England when the house sells, so I had an idea.

If we both look for a job in England we could rent somewhere, with 2 wages coming in and leave this house vacant whilst it is up for sale, we obviously cant stay here, we have no money and he only got paid last week!

The only thing is I have no idea how to do this, Never done anything like this before.

If we applied for jobs in England and got a job, where would we live? we cant rent an house until we have wages coming in. We are just at a loss.

Over the last year, we have cut off both our mobile phone contracts, cut off the TV licience (dont watch TV anymore) cut off everything else we could think of to save money, both stopped smoking, never go out anywhere or do anything, and once again cannot afford to buy any christmas gifts for anybody at all. We cant live like this anymore.

As a side note I am not getting any benefits, I applied for job seekers allowence and I was turned down because I did not have enough contributions, I applied again and was told that my partner works too many hours to qualify.

Does anyone have any ideas at all? I can see that we will lose our house before long.

Sorry this is so long.

RAS

Hi

A lot of this stuff will be a lot better answered on the DFW, money Saving Oldstyle and benefits forums but a few pointers.

1. Are ANY of the bedrooms in a state where you could get a lodger? £370 per month tax free.
2. Have you checked that you cannot get any benefits at all; I think after 13 weeks you may be eligible for help with housing. Turn2us. Check working tax credits, Council tax benefit etc. I assume that you are actually signing on to protect your future right to support?

3. Log onto www.freegle.org.uk and www.freecycle.com and you may well be able to get some of the materials that you need to do up the house, for free.
4. with respect to the bank off-setting against your BF's income
a) urgently get a new basic bank account and get his income paid in there.
b) Go over to DFW or go to CAB and se

lincroft1710

If you look on the Employment section of this forum you will find that there are plenty of people on this side of the Irish Sea not getting interviews and getting interviews but not the job. Many jobs pay no more than National Minimum Wage. So you may want to rethink coming to England.

Is it not possible for either/both of you to live with parents/relatives/friends over there and keep looking for jobs there. If the house is realistically priced you may be able to sell it in the too distant future, but if NI is anything like over here don't expect anyone viewing the house until after Christmas.

calusari

In reply to RAS:

1: We asked about renting the house out but the estate agent said that nobody is really interested in the area we are living right now, we basically live in the middle of nowhere and from what we have been told everyone is going for towns/cities etc.

2: My partner applied for working tax credits and was turned down.

In reply to lincroft1710:

We are moving to England because thats where I am from, we always planned to move there if we were to sell the house, my partner is Northern Irish but wants to come with me. All my family is in England, and my partners family moved to London years ago so there is no family here in NI so moving in with them is a no go right now.

As for the house price, all the houses on our street are priced between £137-145k, the house next door to us has been for sale for three years and we havent noticed one person come to look at it, so we have put ours up at £119k to try and get a quick sale.

RAS

calusari wrote: »

In reply to RAS:

1: We asked about renting the house out but the estate agent said that nobody is really interested in the area we are living right now, we basically live in the middle of nowhere and from what we have been told everyone is going for towns/cities etc.

2: My partner applied for working tax credits and was turned down.

Please can you get fuller advice from one of the debt charities as you may be entitled to help after 13 weeks that you could not get prior to that.

Also, I am not suggesting renting the house out, but seeing if you can get someone to house share. Just one person could make a difference. And unlike rental where people are looking for 6-12 months and you will have trouble getting them out if they do not pay rent, lodgers can be for a few weeks ansd can be removed very quickly if they do not pay.


And please go to DFW or CAB and find out if you can do anything to get the bankl to release some of the money.

There are people on DFW who can help you with living on a very low budget and know about thing like food banks. Ruight now you need something to keep you going whether you live in NI or move to England.

lincroft1710

calusari wrote: »

We are moving to England because thats where I am from, we always planned to move there if we were to sell the house, my partner is Northern Irish but wants to come with me. All my family is in England, and my partners family moved to London years ago so there is no family here in NI so moving in with them is a no go right now.

As for the house price, all the houses on our street are priced between £137-145k, the house next door to us has been for sale for three years and we havent noticed one person come to look at it, so we have put ours up at £119k to try and get a quick sale.

Your original post read as if you were expecting better job luck over here hence my reply.

If you sell at £119K what equity will you have?

RAS's advice is worth following.