Mortgage difficulty - contacting the bank

Irishgal_2

Hi all

Me and my husband have been struggling to pay our mortgage with First Trust and are just in the process of contacting them about the difficulties we are experiencing.

We bought our house in the height of the market, just before the crash.

We paid £175k for the house on a 100% interest only mortgage.

We just had our house valued and it is worth £89k.

We are massively struggling to pay bills each month. We have credit card debt from having to use it to afford oil and diesel essentials. We are even struggling to pay this and have missed payments.

Clearly we can't switch mortgages and can't sell.

Does anyone have any recent experiences of being in mortage difficulty and having high negative equity and any specific experiences with First Trust?

Many thanks

RTNI

What do you owe on the mortgage at present?

saverbuyer

I assume 175K. It was a 100% mortgage, interest only.

tommie

Did you watch last nights Spotlight on BBC1 N.I.??

`Ciaran Tracey investigates Northern Ireland's personal debt crisis, examining the negative equity crash and the quiet deals the banks are doing to try to write it off.`

It will be on iPlayer soon, may have some info helpful to you - check here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01sgphw/Spotlight_14_05_2013/

Update! just noticed it on again tonight - 11:20 PM, Wednesday 15th May 2013

saverbuyer

Honestly OP, I would seriously consider bankruptcy. Life's too short to constantly struggle paying back an unending pile of debt.

oldhand

Difficult to see much light at the end of this tunnel sadly.Many people fell into the same trap willing to go into any debt to get a house believing they could only go up in price.
My own situation was different in as much as I bought when the prices had not got out of control upwards however I got into difficulties paying because of illness (no mortgage wasnt covered for it) and spoke to halifax the lenders who were very good in as much as they agreed a reduced payment of almost half the monthly mortgage for 5 months to allow me to get better.
But after the 5 months I then received a letter asking me of my intentions to repay the outstanding amount owed.Luckily I was back working and with a lot of belt tightening was able to pay the outstanding amount off.
I dont think unfortunately your position will be similar.£175k on a house valued at £89k means you must be throwing money down the drain and with your other debts in CCs its not looking good.
The boom in the housing market of a few years back will never be repeated,certainly not in our lifetimes.
You should speak with your mortgage company right away,your certainly not the first with such problems and although you may owe a lot the last thing they will want is to take your home off you.
That said you need to sit down and get some advice from CAB or people with the necessary experience to help you decide how to proceed.Wish I could offer you more help and hope but I do wish you all the very best,good luck.

Irishgal_2

Thanks for all your advice.

I will have to watch that programme later. Thanks for the heads up.

It is such a difficult situation because of the negative equity. It is not as easy as handing back the keys. I know that I need to be sensible and consider whether the mortgage is viable anymore given the fall in house prices. I live in a small ex council house. I have no issues with renting.

Bankruptcy may be an issue in my job as I work in professional services.

Does anyone have any advice when speaking with the bank? They have asked us to send through bank statements and pay slips for past three months to see what they can do for us, but to be honest, for me, reducing payments for a few months isn't going to fix the problem.

Mr_Bun

Sorry to hear about your troubles,you are not alone believe you me.
Did you consider contacting CCCS or some other debt charity to see if they could set you up with a DMP?
Not sure if this will be of any use,but might be worth a try:o

Irishgal_2

Thanks.

I spoke briefly with one of the debt charities but would need to make an appt.

I guess I know given my situation that I'm not going to get anywhere paying money into this house. I certainly don't have a vehicle in place to pay it off after the term ends!
I just don't know what the banks view will be on it. I've seen very few cases online where the negative equity is so high!

Beachview_2

I wish you all the best with getting your awful situation sorted. Seems you've been given some useful advice by the others above.

Good luck with it

butterflymum

I have had no experience of your situation, but having read your thread, did not want to let it pass without adding some encouragement, so I am commenting purely out of concern for your well being, and emphasising what previous posts have suggested, especially:

oldhand wrote: »

you need to sit down and get some advice from CAB or people with the necessary experience to help you decide how to proceed.

Please, please do take this excellent advice from oldhand.


It is almost 2 years since you posted the following:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3327576

and reading same, i would think you could see potential problems even then.

For your own well being and that of your husband, you both need to act sooner rather than later. Whilst it is great that you have taken steps to seek suggestions/pointers/etc from fellow MSErs, you won't achieve a way forward without action. You said you are 'massively struggling' and that you have spoken briefly with a debt charity but would need to make an appointment....then, make the appointment. Keeping on struggling will do neither of you any good and it is more than likely there will be people out there who can help. It may not be easy, at any stage, but going positively forward, facing difficulties with supportive, experienced help, has to surely be better than struggling on.

I sincerely wish you both all the best as you face and deal with what has and is happening.