How to be rid of my secured loan (with credit cards?)

Tara100

Ok, I was an idiot, and really regret it, but some years back I needed money to complete essential house repairs......

I owe Blenheim Finance £14,500 (and whatever they will ask for in early resettlement fees etc)

I currently repay £138.14 per month (25 year term with 20 years left) and wonder if there's a better finance solution which would take over the loan and therefore lessen my monthly repayment?

Can this be done with credit cards? (If it helps, my credit rating is excellent)

(I plan to put my house up for sale at the end of the year, so at a guess, if it sells by next spring, the loan would be paid off then anyway)

Many thanks in advance
Tara

keith1950

Hi, if you are definately going to sell within the next 12 months it seems to be a bit impulsive to replace one debt with another for the sake of a few months.

If your credit is that good apply for a secured loan with a high street bank at a better interest rate.

As far as credit cards are concerned, remember that when you use a card there is a fee of 2-3% that is usually absorbed by the retailer.

Assuming that Blenheim would accept payment by card then you would also have to pay them the card fee which on £14,500 would be between £290-£435. That is also assuming that the settlement figure would be £14,500.

You would need to check what the actual settlement figure would be as ,by your figures, there are 240 x£138.14 payments still outstanding which is £33,154.

You need to find out the early repayment rebates.

Tixy

Highly unlikley to be realistic to do anything with credit cards.
First you need to get enough cards to have sufficent limits. They'll probably need to be cards that allow money transfers as you are unlikley to be able to pay off the loan except from your bank account (only a few providers allow money transfers) then you'd obviously factor in the cost of the settlement and transfers even if you could get 0% deals etc.

And if your house doesn't sell and you cannot clear the cards then you could be left with the debt stuck on cards charging interest and have high minimum payments perhaps higher than you can afford to repay (ie your repayments would likely be well over double what you pay now on standard rate APRs).

If you have a good credit history, no unsecured debts (or minimal) and are a high earner you could possibly look to see if you could get a cheaper unsecured loan. But this would be over a shorter term so won't give you the lower monthly payment you want. But what APR are you paying currently?
If you are able to settle in less than a year then the APR would need to be a lot lower than what you are paying now for it to work out cheaper over a year once you've factored in any settlement fees etc.

From the figures above (£14,500, 20years and £138 per month) it looks like your APR is only about 10% anyway - its unlikely anything unsecured would be much cheaper.

If you are struggling to meet your payment for this loan as well as your mortgage and other commitments it might be an idea to post on the debt free wannabe board where you can post up a statement of affairs and ask people to help you find areas you can save money/get things cheaper etc so that you can manage your repayments easier.