Mortgage Holiday

glittermonster

Hi

I bought our house in June 2009 and have a 3 year fixed rate with halifax.

Put down a deposit for £33k on a property bought for £150k.

I'm now pregnant and thinking of ways to help through the 3 months I'll be on SMP... I took a payment holiday last year in August as my paydays changed due to a new job and this was to sort it to a better day, from 23rd of the month to 10th of the month.

Anyways I'm thinking of taking a 3 month (if they let me) holiday for Jan, Feb & March to get us through my SMP period.

Ideally we'd save up the money to carry on paying the mortgage but with our first little one on the way and we are really working hard to pay as much debt as we can I think this is a viable option.

Does anyone have any options or advice to share?

Thank you

opinions4u

Your reason for wanting a payment holiday is sound enough and as long as your account is up to date and your loan to value is less than 90% they will probably approve it. Note that there is a limit of 6 months of payment holiday for the whole mortgage term. So if you've already had a payment holiday you may be running out of future options.

You should ask them the question about how it reports to credit reference agencies these days. It used to show as full payment made, so it shouldn't be a problem, but times have changed so it's worth checking.

Personally I'm not a great fan of payment holidays. They are basically a short term loan (for the value of the missed payments) repaid over an exceptionally long term (the remainder of the mortgage) with interest.

Whatever you decide, best of luck with everythnig!

glittermonster

Thank you opinions - my account is up to date and my LTV was 75% when I bought the property.

Is that 6 payment holidays in the term - i.e. 25 years!

I will ask about the credit reference agencies - thannk you for the advice.

And yes I agree that its not the best option but I dont think I have any others -

I shall give them a call just to check it out before I commit to anything - maybe if I mention it to my parents they will offer to help out and I can pay them back interest free.... but if its just us working out a plan I think this is our only option with SMP being sooo pathetic!

Thank you for your kind advice and time I really appreciate it.