We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum... Read More »
PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING: Hello Forumites! In order to help keep the Forum a useful, safe and friendly place for our users, discussions around non-MoneySaving matters are not permitted per the Forum rules. While we understand that mentioning house prices may sometimes be relevant to a user's specific MoneySaving situation, we ask that you please avoid veering into broad, general debates about the market, the economy and politics, as these can unfortunately lead to abusive or hateful behaviour. Threads that are found to have derailed into wider discussions may be removed. Users who repeatedly disregard this may have their Forum account banned. Please also avoid posting personally identifiable information, including links to your own online property listing which may reveal your address. Thank you for your understanding.
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
House swap advice
TerrierTodd
Posts: 2 Newbie
Hello, I'm hoping some of you can help us.
A quick overview of our situation. We currently own a two bedroom flat which we bought at almost the height of the market for 75k. We had it valued for part exchange last year at 65 & 62k. The mortgage is currently at around 67k so based on those figures we are in negative equity.
Also at the time we bought the flat it had roughly 67 years on the leasehold. As first time buyers we were very naive and our mortgage adviser at the time decided not to tell us that we would struggle to re-mortgage after this dipped below 65 years. We now have the owners of the lease trying to extort £3500+ from us to extend the lease to 150 years, although I am planning on using the leasehold advisory service to get a solicitor to try get this reduced to 90 years at a smaller fee.
While my wife and I both have decent wages now this wasn't always the case, and that combined with the costs of getting married etc landed us in some debt. We're following Martins advise on putting most disposable income into debt rather than savings We started with almost 16k on credit cards which we've gotten down to 10k in the past year. Factoring in pay rises/promotions at the current rate I think we could be back in the black in around 18 months.
We do have some savings though. Through a share scheme at my wifes work (we buy one and they buy one) we have about £6500 in shares, however we don't have access to the shares bought by her company until they've been there for five years. the first of these will be available in a month or two. We also have some bonus shares which total 2/3k although these aren't available for withdrawal until 2013. So basically while we have some savings, most of it isn't available to us for another few years.
So that's the old news, the new news is we're expecting our first child early next year which we're very happy about. While our flat is big enough for a child (the people we bought it from had a child here) we would very much like more space as our bathroom and especially kitchen is very small. Due to us being in negative equity and putting most spare cash into clearing debt we don’t have any immediate funds for a deposit on a house. We did look at part exchanging last year (pre bump) and were told they couldn’t help us.
My wife’s father owns their family home, which is a three bedroom terrace. He has a partner that he has been with for a couple of years, who he now stays with most of the time. He has said that he would be happy to swap houses with us so we could have the extra space without increasing our monthly outgoings.
I think his idea is that we would just do a swap temporarily. He would pay the utility bills here, we would pay the utility bills there and we would continue to pay the mortgage on the flat. This would go on until such a time that we are ready to sell the flat and move to a new home. At which point my father in law would take his house back or sell it. Our thought is this process will take about 3 years.
We’re worried about the legal implications of this, would we be risking upsetting the mortgage company by having someone else live here? Would there be any additional taxes or charges we haven’t considered?
Anyone that could give me some constructive pointers would be greatly appreciated.
A quick overview of our situation. We currently own a two bedroom flat which we bought at almost the height of the market for 75k. We had it valued for part exchange last year at 65 & 62k. The mortgage is currently at around 67k so based on those figures we are in negative equity.
Also at the time we bought the flat it had roughly 67 years on the leasehold. As first time buyers we were very naive and our mortgage adviser at the time decided not to tell us that we would struggle to re-mortgage after this dipped below 65 years. We now have the owners of the lease trying to extort £3500+ from us to extend the lease to 150 years, although I am planning on using the leasehold advisory service to get a solicitor to try get this reduced to 90 years at a smaller fee.
While my wife and I both have decent wages now this wasn't always the case, and that combined with the costs of getting married etc landed us in some debt. We're following Martins advise on putting most disposable income into debt rather than savings We started with almost 16k on credit cards which we've gotten down to 10k in the past year. Factoring in pay rises/promotions at the current rate I think we could be back in the black in around 18 months.
We do have some savings though. Through a share scheme at my wifes work (we buy one and they buy one) we have about £6500 in shares, however we don't have access to the shares bought by her company until they've been there for five years. the first of these will be available in a month or two. We also have some bonus shares which total 2/3k although these aren't available for withdrawal until 2013. So basically while we have some savings, most of it isn't available to us for another few years.
So that's the old news, the new news is we're expecting our first child early next year which we're very happy about. While our flat is big enough for a child (the people we bought it from had a child here) we would very much like more space as our bathroom and especially kitchen is very small. Due to us being in negative equity and putting most spare cash into clearing debt we don’t have any immediate funds for a deposit on a house. We did look at part exchanging last year (pre bump) and were told they couldn’t help us.
My wife’s father owns their family home, which is a three bedroom terrace. He has a partner that he has been with for a couple of years, who he now stays with most of the time. He has said that he would be happy to swap houses with us so we could have the extra space without increasing our monthly outgoings.
I think his idea is that we would just do a swap temporarily. He would pay the utility bills here, we would pay the utility bills there and we would continue to pay the mortgage on the flat. This would go on until such a time that we are ready to sell the flat and move to a new home. At which point my father in law would take his house back or sell it. Our thought is this process will take about 3 years.
We’re worried about the legal implications of this, would we be risking upsetting the mortgage company by having someone else live here? Would there be any additional taxes or charges we haven’t considered?
Anyone that could give me some constructive pointers would be greatly appreciated.
0
Comments
-
Trying a bump in hopes someone can help out.0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 351.6K Banking & Borrowing
- 253.4K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 453.9K Spending & Discounts
- 244.6K Work, Benefits & Business
- 600K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 177.2K Life & Family
- 258.3K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.2K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.6K Read-Only Boards