Negative equity - needing to sell a 100% mortgaged house worth less than bought for!

Blueberry13

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone knows of *anything* we can try?

We bought this house 9 years ago, we were forced financially to remortgage it 4 years ago. At that time it seemed a good idea, we bought the house so cheaply, it was only remortgaged at 75,000... houses nearby were selling for over 100,000 even in the state of ours...

Unfortunately I really, really want/need to move now. When we bought the house we had no idea of the area we lived in, in the last 4 years it has nosedived to the point of being dangerous to live here, I don't want my children growing up here. It's now an infamous place synonymous with bad press, murders, gangs etc. Due to lots of crime and anti social behavior the house prices have absolutely buckled and are now back to the same price as when we bought it.

We could probably only sell it for about 50,000 - we haven't had the money for improvements so it's all pretty....horrible and 1970s still. With crumbling walls and hideous carpets and kitchen.

What can you do when you need to move but you'd have at least 15,000 negative equity left? We have no savings.

I'm seriously desperate to get out of here - one example of why; my 6 year old daughter had bleach poured over her recently on one of the exceedingly few times I let her nip to her friend's house 3 doors up to get an ice cream (I don't let them play out at all) I was even watching .

We don't want to buy another house (we wouldn't get enough from selling here to buy anywhere in a better area) and want to move onto the rental market - which seems bad as we obviously can't transfer any negative equity onto a new mortgage.

Is there anything, anything at all we can do? This place is destroying my mental health and my kids are prisoners in their own home apart from when we take 2 buses to clubs as far away as possible.

kingstreet

You'll need permission from your lender to be able to sell for less than the outstanding mortgage. They will want to agree a payment schedule with you for after the sale is completed.

Blueberry13

Oh... I didn't think lenders just did that?!! I was told there was nothing we could do.

Would it be like continuing to pay the mortgage while renting the new house?

I am pretty clueless to be honest!

olly300

Blueberry13 wrote: »

Oh... I didn't think lenders just did that?!! I was told there was nothing we could do.

Would it be like continuing to pay the mortgage while renting the new house?

I am pretty clueless to be honest!

Have you tried talking to your lender? I suggest you do.

Also if the area is that bad it make take years for you to sell the house.

Fire_Fox

Welcome! Speak to the lender, see if there is anything they can offer you. Are you reporting all the criminal activity and antisocial behaviour to the police and all noise to Environmental Health? Once you have a body of evidence the antisocial behaviour unit at the local council can get involved.

Blueberry13

We haven't talked to the lender yet, we're not really in very much debt at all, a bit of an overdraft and the rest is just this mortgage. My husband has a decent middle of the road waged job and I'm studying, so I don't think bankruptcy is the way to go, we're not in any way near that - we get by at a pretty level rate, without the chance to have savings. We just don't have an instant way to put our hands on an extra 15,000 to cover the difference. Edit: the remortgage was to get husband out of student debts he'd accrued and were hanging on like a bad smell!

I'll phone them on Monday.

There's difficulty in reporting crime/behaviour here - it's so prevalent that you may as well not bother - the council move people here who are trouble makers to get them out of upstanding citizen's way!!! Not the other way around. If you report stuff, you get known as a 'grass' and then get your windows put it and fireworks through your letter box - not the best!

It is a good point about the not selling - how do you sell a house in a street where it's known to be full of....um....undesirables, just around the corner from murders that have made national news?! Who in their right mind will buy it!?

Fire_Fox

The problem is whilst everyone says you may as well not bother nothing will change. Even if you can get one family moved there is a chance that will make your property more saleable.

Familiarise yourself with MSE and the many challenges, there used to be a 'Live on £4K for a year' for example (whole family, after rent/ mortgage/ council tax). Consider completing a Statement of Affairs and posting on the Debt Free Wannabe board for comments on how to cut back. Also you might consider matched betting - a system NOT gambling - you could make a couple of grand each tax free to put towards the negative equity.