Finance help please

Thrugelmir

*Summertime* wrote: »

We do have tenants in our UK home at the moment, it is an asset and we aren't losing anything on it, even if property prices tumble the rental market here is strong so it is definitley worth our while to keep it if we can, it is just the Cyprus apartment that is causing us bother at the moment, we are not in an ideal situation at all I have sent lots of emails to various people today to hopefully get some advice on where to go from here.

Default in Cyprus and they may well come after your UK assets.

Suggest you consider selling both properties then starting with a blank canvas.

SouthCoast

The options appear to be a self managed exit from the property world or an exit managed by lawyers and debt collectors.

JulieBond

*Summertime* wrote: »

I will keep it as short as possible...

I live with hubby (both 29).
6 years ago before we met I bought a 1 bed apartment in Cyprus off plan. I was very naive but actually after watching Holiday Homes from Hell I feel lucky to have a nice apartment....
It is rented out to a single lady who pays 300euro per month. The mortgage is in swiss franks and is 646CHF per month so I send funds over each month.
In 2014 this mortage will increase - the mortgages are different over there and you pay massive amounts of interest in the first 5 years, after this time you start to chip away at rest.

4 years ago we bought a house in our home town to live in, we did so for 3 years and had our first baby there. Our baby became dangerously ill and was in intensive care when she was born, this was very sressful for us and we decided to move in with my parents so I could work part time and spend time with our baby. We rented our house out a year ago.

We have now moved into a rented house on a beautiful private estate, my husband is a Landscape Gardener and will hopefully be working on the estate grounds soon. We don't ever plan on leaving this house as it is our dream house. However, we will never be able to buy it as the properties here are not for sale.

We live to an extremley tight budget every day, as I know a lot of people do. I am happy to do this but I would love for the financial burden to be lifted a little.

My dilema - I can't sell the apartment in Cyprus as mortgages there are very difficult to get. To be honest I don't really understand the deal I have, I have spoken to my bank over there and they say I would have to pay them the outstanding amount (including the interest for the whole term) if I sell, the property simply is not worth that at the moment. I have tried to get advice from so many people but no-one can help me get to the bottom of it. I know going over there would help so I can sit down and talk to someone face to face but we can't afford that. Before we had a tenant I seriously considered just not paying but I know that would be silly.

The house here is great, in a lovely spot and I am sure would always rent out, it doesn't cost us anything (aside from the usual Landlord obligations), we don't make a profit on it but don't expect to. I would like to keep the property as part of a pension plan but part of me feels if we sold it, probably have £30k equity in it at the moment, we could send the money over to Cyprus and it would give us a bit of breathing space, but then it would feel like we are selling a good investment for short term help.

If anyone can help or point me in the right direction, or what they would do in my sitiation it would be much appreciated.

Sx

Dear Sx
Don't think you're the only one who has done such a rash decision! Me & my husband did the same 4 years ago. Same place same mortgage (swiss francs) we pay 600 a month on a empty property - it's killing us even so we begged the bank to allow us 6 months grace on the payments - we still have this looming over our heads - I hate.
Like you I was very tempted NOT to pay the mortage but would I really like to have debt collectors knocking on my door NO!!
We are in the process of selling our uk property and downsizes using the equity to pay off some debt but Cyprus will never go away until we either sell or finish paying the mortage in 15 years.

Help too!!!