Help with remortgage/consolidation

tashlovestosave

Morning all

I have decided to make this my diary.

Also, we have decided against the remortgage/consolidation. I had a good long look at everything and have figured out that if we take our 6 month holiday break that we can have with the Halifax then we could pay off four maybe even five of our debts. They are small debts but the interest is ridiculous. Then when that is done we can plough our spare cash into our credit cards. When that is done we can start overpaying our loan.......or paying off in bulk (already checked we can do that). I realise that we still have to pay interest on our mortgage during the break but it means that there will be less confusion. We then need to look at the overdrafts and clearing them. One debt was cleared last month and this month i intend to pay more off my Next account. This interest is crippling.

tashlovestosave

Update.

Took the mortgage Holiday as of July. This has allowed us to finish off the last two payments of a loan and also we have paid off most of the next account. Next month we will finish the next account and start on the HFC payments.

It feels good to be dealing with our debts but i am dreading coming out of our fixed rate for our mortgage in Dec........the Bank of England are raising the rates again!!!! This means our mortgage will be huge. However if we are NEAR debt free soon then it will hurt alot less.

angelavdavis

Well done Tash, really pleased you have managed to find a way around this one.

I missed your previous posts, but it looks like you have done really well.

Some other thoughts though. How did you get on with Halifax? I really recommend that you put your complaint in writing and threaten them with the banking ombudsman due to their poor service. Even speak with Trading standards as they are in breach of their promise when you switched accounts.

Whenever dealing with these organisations, always write to them - sending recorded if possible. I have more results this way.

Have you tried applying for your bank charges back? I think this should also be done if you haven't already done this.

Write to Experian and Equifax to have a note put on your OHs credit files about the problem with Halifax to explain your missed loan payment.

In three months or so, I would also give it another try to switch your cards to a lower life of balance if you can too, although paying off as much as possible is definitely a better way.

My fixed rate also ends December so I know the dread feeling!!!

Remember that you can agree a rate fix in October, it is usually honoured for up to 90 days - so you could effectively fix the rate before any rate rises in November.

tashlovestosave

Hi Angela

I haven't tackled the Halifax as yet. I needed to get my head straight about keeping our payments to everything up to date. We were late for so many recently that i had a permanent headache and my hair was turning grey he he. Thankfully we moved all the dates around and paid off some debts and now all is calm.

The problem with the switching process is that they ONLY move direct debits (we didn't know this) and hubbys loan payment was with the Natwest so therefore it was a standing order!!!! Annoying cos they say they will 'take care of everything if you switch'!!!! RUBBISH.

As for the bank charges......we are going to apply at both banks for the history and go from there. I reckon we will be very surprised at the amount even though i have had alot of charges reversed.

The thing that surprises us the most is that three years ago we were debt free apart from our teeny tiny mortgage!!!!! Now we have a large ish mortgage (156k) and have loads of petty debts that add up to a fortune in payments per month. Just paying off what we have paid off we have saved ourselves £250 a month in payments!!!! Unbelieveable

lynzpower

I dont know if its any use to you - but we have a seperate account for all our set outgoings. OH and I set up a DD into this on payday. from there, the rent, insurances, lecky, phone internet go out.

This account just ticks over. We put in the right amount of money & voila everything important gets paid. We then pay debt/ go out/ buy clothes & food and all that jazz on whats left in our OWN accounts.

therefore the seperate account ensures everything is taken care of - no more red letters etc.

If you have charges, just claim them back. Ive claimed back 3 lots of charges so far, and they havent closed my account on any of them yet.

Set up a "parachute account" ( A&L you get 50.00 from quidco for doing) just in cse you should need it.

tashlovestosave

We do have separate accounts already. We have a dedicated account for bills but we still managed to balls it up!!!!