Full and final settlement

irishmissy

Hi, i am new to this site and am hoping someone can help.

I have recently spilt with my husband and he has moved out into a rented property. He is not prepared to pay in any way towards bills, upkeep or mortgage of the former marital home. He pays £240 in maintenance for our daughter and nothing else. As a result i cannot afford to continue living in the house.

*Mortgage company will not let me take over the mortgage by myself.
* Reducing the payments to intereset only will only reduce the payments by £120 per month so not really any help.
* The house would be rented out for max of £650 a month - leaving a shortfal of £326 per month along with a minimum rental expense for me of £475
* i am not in a position to borrow any money from family members / friends

At this stage my next mortgage opayment is due tomorrow and i cant really afford it. I am seriously considering handing the keys back to the bank.

The house is in negative equity (outstanding mortgage of approx £190k - realistic estate agent valuation of £160k) with a monthly payment of £976 (repayment)

Halifax have advised that they will let "us" repay the shortfall at 0% interest for however long it takes but to be honest i resent the fact that he is walking away scot free from the marriage and the debt while i am left to pay it all back by myself. He says he will declare bankrupcty if necessary, he doesnt really care :-(

My estate agents have advised me that if a mortgage is in arrears with my mortgage lender they have been known to accept the sale price as full and final settlement of the mortgage. Apparently its only a case with Halifax (LLoyds group in other words)

Has anyone else heard of this???

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this.

Gary123456790

Hi,

I used to work for a sub-prime lender so have seen lots of people getting into difficulty. I feel for you with your situation as your ex clearly doesn't care although my sympathy doesn't actually do you any good!

I would strongly advise against giving the keys to the bank - they will just sell it through a local estate agent anyway, the only difference is that you will be charged a large number of costs related to selling the property. These will be put on your mortgage account and will make the shortfall/negative equity much higher.

You clearly cannot stay in the property as this will just make the situation worse and completely wreck your credit history.

You will need the signature of your ex to be able to sell the property - would you be able to get this?

Perhaps call your ex's bluff - tell him you are going to stop paying the mortgage and stay in the property as long as possible and get massively in arrears - this would wreck both yours and his credit history so tell him if he ever wants a loan or a mortgage in the next 10 years he can forget it - might get some action but im not hopeful in your situation.

I would say sell it yourself if you can for whatever you can get for it before the arrears mount up. It sounds as if Halifax are fairly flexible on the shortfall - they might even accept part but at least at 0% the situation wont be getting worse and you can consider your options.

Most of all please deal with the situation now - you can resolve this!

Best of luck!

Gary.