Advice please anyone?

monwind

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We have a house valued at £245,000 and a mortgage of £137,000. Because our business of 22 years failed we need approx £40,000 to pay credit card and loans off. We are currently on a DMP but I have just been finished at work. Hubby is not well and I am going nuts! Does anyone know of any equity release firms that will buy a share in our house. I am 50 and hubby is 53. Any replies would be appreciated. Thanks. M

BitterAndTwisted

Equity-release is often a very poor choice, especially in the long-term. You'll get next-to-nothing, really.

What sort of property would £80k buy you for cash where you are?

Honest_EA

You say the house is valued at £245,000 but who carried out this valuation? If it was a local Estate Agent then it is simply a guide and based on their opinion. You are likely to have less equity in the property than you think. When someone goes to their lender looking to release some equity from their property, the lender will send a surveyor to value the property and base the amount of equity available on the surveyors valuation. I can tell you from experience that the surveyors valuation will be lower than what you think your house is worth as the bank want to protect their interests and the surveyor doesnt want to get sued by the bank for overvaluing a property. For any form of equity release you are going to face a much lower valuation on your property.

My advice would be to simply sell your property through an agent at a very attractive price, clear the mortgage and your outstanding debts and use the leftover cash to live a debt free life while renting a nice property.

monwind

Thanks B and T and Honest. We would probably be best selling but at the moment my head is just all over the place. As you both know the housing market is very slow moving at the moment and it isn't a good time to try and sell. The house next to us has been up for a while, just not sure what to do. We are on a DMP at the moment and none of the debt is secured on our property, and all the debts are in my hubby's name only. The house is jointly owned. M

BitterAndTwisted

Do you know what the asking-price is for the house next door, if it's similar to yours? They could be being extremely over-optimistic is it's not shifting.

If you've no income how long are you going to be able to maintain making your current payments on this DMP without renegotiating, if that's possible?

Perhaps selling up and becoming debt-free might be the best option. The value of being able to sleep at night is incalculable