What's the worst that can happen?

Isklar

I've got debt total approx £5500, one (£4500) on MBNA card currently at 0% (runs out next May) and the other (1000) on a Visa which is LOB at 5.9%.
I am currently making minimum payments and paying a bit more extra each month. Of course this doesn't seem to be making much of a reduction in the total but it's all I can afford at the moment.
My main worry is that if I lost my job and had to live on benefits I don't know if I could make minimum payments on them both. I'm currently looking for more work to get my salary up but as we all know there's not much work out there at the moment.

I own my house. If the worst came to the worst, and I was unemployed and I was struggling to make those minimum payments could I lose my house?
I am having trouble sleeping at night thinking about this and in the big picture its such a small debt and it would be unthinkable to lose my house over it....

Tixy

As long as you don't stop payments altogether and don't ignore your creditors then you won't lose your house.

If the worst happens then you would need to make reduced payments or token payments.
Even if the creditor won't accept that and decide to take you to court a judge should never order you to pay more than you can afford. So if they grant a CCJ is should be at a monthly rate you can afford - sometimes CCJs are granted for just a couple of quid a month even.

Worst case scenario would be that the judge felt you would never be able to pay the CCJ off and then might allow the creditor to try to obtain a charging order. If this happens you would still try to fight against it, but even if it did happen and a charging order was placed against the property you wouldn't be forced to sell (forced sale orders are rare than hens teeth).

The likelihood is it wouldn't even be taken to court and that they'd accept your reduced payments. The key thing is to keep your creditors informed and to ensure you pay what you can.

Isklar

Tixy, thank you so much for your reply, I feel reassured now. I cant believe I've been lettig myself have sleepless nights over this, I was too afraid to find out the answer to the question! Now I'm going to stop worrying about something that may not even happen - losing my job - and get on with chipping away a bit more at this debt month by month.
Again thank you!