Need urgent advice, behind on repayments

JLovely

I am really starting to panic - we are now 3 months behind on our mortgage and now 1 month behind on a secure loan. I also am almost 6 months behind on a credit card and have another card that I can only afford to pay the minimal payment on. I have several jobs - all part time that work around my 2yr old - I can do no more than Im already doing. My husband is self employed and it's due to him missing some weeks/days of work that we are in this mess (not his fault the work has not been there). We are living on the breadline - but I know when my husband is bringing in full weeks money and Im earning what I am we can cope - but we have this back log from a blip that lasted a few months and I see no way out. If we sell up we'll never be able to afford to buy again in our home town and neither of us want to move - or give up our property. We have equity in our home but I don't know enough about re-mortgaging to know if this is an option for us bearing in mind our credit history. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

RAS

Hi

Others will be here shortly to help you out more, but in the short-term, can you speak to your mortgage copmpany asap and ask whether you could go interest only for a few months, so you can pay off the backlog?

Unless you are very lucky, mortgage rates now will be higher than the one you are already on.

You need to know the difference between what you are paying and what you would pay on interest only and work out the difference. Then find out how much the arrears are and divide the arrears by the difference to find out how long it would take.

You must pay something on the secure loan and sort that out ASAp or you could lose the house, the others can take a temporary hike. Send them £1 and a promise to sort it out ASAP. Then get yourself down to CAB, CCCs or Payplan and get some proper help.

Whilst you are doing that check www.entitledto to see if you can get any additional help based on your income.

Then put up and SOA regarding your income and expenditure so that people here can see if there is anyway of making things work. See
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=107280

Longer term, you need funds that enable you to cope with the bad weeks as well as the good ones.

And is OH saving for his tax? Or are you going to get clobbered with that shortly?

Lazy_Runner

Hi

Welcome to MSE. I am not an expert but I am sure one will be along shortly.

You may wish to post your SOA and how to do this can be found in Southernscouser's post at the top of the DFW page. Link:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=107280

Hope that Helps.

LJD1_2

Hiya
I can only add to what the others have said. If you put your SOA up people might be able help you. Really hope that you can sort something out xx

hypno06

Most importantly you must speak to your mortgage provider and secured loan provider if you have not already done so to come to a temporary arrangement - they are generally far more helpful if you approach them rather than if you bury your head in the sand and hope it goes away.

Give Payplan or CCCS a call - their details are on these boards if you do a search, or the others worth using are the CAB or National Debtline.

Above all do not go to anyone who will charge a fee for their services - the above are free and will not push you into doing anything that is not right for you.

Is there anything you can ebay/car boot that would bring some short term cash in? Can OH do some part time work/agency work to see him through the lean weeks?

Good luck, and keep posting.

Conor_3

The problem is obviously lack of work and thankfully at this time of year, there's an extremely quick solution to remedy this providing you're not too fussy about what you do which, in the position you're in, your husband can't afford to be.

The quickest solution would be for him to sign up with temp agencies doing anything, even factory work. It'll be minimum wage but if he started work next week, he'd get paid the week after.

As it is temp work, he can drop it when he gets some self employed stuff and restart it when that finishes.

There's tons of temp factory/process work around. It ain't glamorous but it may give you enough breathing space.

Also make sure you update the Working Tax Credits to take into account the lower income you're looking at for the year.

JLovely

Conor wrote: »

The problem is obviously lack of work and thankfully at this time of year, there's an extremely quick solution to remedy this providing you're not too fussy about what you do which, in the position you're in, your husband can't afford to be.

The quickest solution would be for him to sign up with temp agencies doing anything, even factory work. It'll be minimum wage but if he started work next week, he'd get paid the week after.

As it is temp work, he can drop it when he gets some self employed stuff and restart it when that finishes.

There's tons of temp factory/process work around. It ain't glamorous but it may give you enough breathing space.

Also make sure you update the Working Tax Credits to take into account the lower income you're looking at for the year.

My husbands work although self employed means he is sub contracted to a company. He has regular work but due to weather (he is a Roofer) and his old workmate letting him down on and off over a period of 2 months he did not have regular work. Signing with an agency would not be a good idea - because he never knows when he will have the odd day off of work - he never has a whole week off. He does to the odd private job to bring in extra cash but his days are long enough at the moment that he could not fit more work into his day. Where his tax is concerned he pays that each week to the Inland Revenue - it is taken straight out of his wages paid by the company he is sub contracted to - so we do not have that worry. I will do my SOA and post it later as Im currently working myself and only have a 5min break. My friend has told me to contact CCCS, so I shall do that shortly.

Thanks and more advice is welcome.

JLovely

How annoying! Want to speak to someone now at Northern Rock, black Horse etc.... and they're all shut!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AGHHHHHHHHHHHHH:mad:

hypno06

How frustrating!!

Try not to worry over the rest of the weekend, take solace in the fact that you are now determined to sort this out and get back on the phone first thing on Monday Morning. Use the time to surf these boards and get some motivation from the people on here!

LJD1_2

It's so annoying when you want to sort everything and and they're closed. Make yourself a list of all the phone calls you need to make on Monday morning and what you need to let them know and what you want to acheive. At least that way it'll be clearer in your head what you have to do xx

JLovely

Thanks, I will be on the phone first thing Monday morning don't you worry! lol Im determined to sort this now - we need to start living again. I feel even more determined as we really want to try for another baby in the New Year and I'd like to be on the road to keeping up with repayments by then - I know I will not be debt free but I'd like to be coping. Our aim is to be on top of things as we'd like to move house in 2009 as if we have another child we will need more room, I will be able to work more by that point too - but we need half decent credit to be able to gain a mortgage again. We have equity in our house that would pay off everything and leave us with approx £30K spare - but I cannot see anyone giving us a mortgage based on our history over the last 6 months even with £30K to flutter in their faces as a deposit on the next property.