Sell the house start afresh?

lauralou1234

Partner is in around £12,000 worth of debt including £4000 with the tax man (he is self employed). These are debts from when he was footloose and fancy free. We had a financial advisor tell us that we would not be able to get any equity loans or other loans for that matter due to his books being very low for the past 3 years.


I am a SAHM and he earns around £500 a week from his business. I also get £120 a week from an inheritance fund.
I absolutely HATE the house we are living in and have never been happy here. It's getting to the point where it gets me down. I would love somewhere with a garden. We live in central Blackpool at the moment and it is awful. I am so desperate to move, I cry regularly.

I am due to go to uni in 2015 and will be a qualified social worker in 2018. I would love to sell the house, use £10,000 to pay off his debts to start afresh, and put the remainder (around £20,000) in a savings account for a deposit on a new house once I am qualified and we have two incomes.


We are looking at £500 a month rental when our mortgage is only £350, but this is something I would be willing to sacrifice.

Good idea or not? I personally think its a good idea but I think that is partly because I am so unhappy here.

lauralou1234

Anybody? I am desperate for advice.

Pitchshifter

Yeah sell it if it's getting you down. Pay off all £12k not just £10k of the debts. Put the other £18k into savings or whatever (maybe buy silver, you never know!)

yorpington

I'd definitely be tempted to sell if I were you. I agree though that it's not worth it unless you pay off ALL your debts, not just £10K. Sell it, pay off absolutely everything, sling the rest in savings and find somewhere nice, in good condition, with a good landlord, that doesn't upset you to rent while you finish your education. I've lived somewhere that made me desperately unhappy and it had a terrible effect on my ability to study!

Hope it works out for you

P.S. Pay off the tax before anything else!!

Tixy

Definitely something to consider as it sounds like it would kill 2 birds.
What does your partner think about the idea?

You have presumably worked out you could definitely afford the higher cost of the rental payments both now and when you start studying (and perhaps have increased childcare or travel costs).

Worth also thinking about how you may deal with the potenital downsides of renting.
E.g. how easy will you find it to rent a property where you want to live? how much of an upheveal will it be for both you and your child(ren) if you end up needing to move to new rental properties quite a few times.Will the kids need to move schools? may they need to move schools again if you have to move to a new rental each year?
Do you have pets? are you likely to find it harder to find a rental because of them?

Are any of his debts likely to cause an issue for you getting accepted for rental properties (i.e. does he have any CCJs or anything that would show on a credit check - missed payments and even defaults won't show).
Are you likely to be asked to provide a rental guarantor and could you provide one if you were?

lauralou1234

Sorry, my mistake with the numbers, we would pay all £12k off..
My child is only 1 yo and I have one due in a few months so school is not an issue at the moment. When I will be studying, we will actually be better off. as I was due to go this year until I found out that I was pregnant. I had already sent off my finance information and it worked out we would be getting £16,000 nearly in the first year alone, made up of childcare grants/maintenance loans/grants/parent learner allowance/high achiever award.


I have a cat but he is mainly outdoors so hopefully wouldn't cause too much of a problem. I must admit, the instability of renting is not ideal but I am just so unhappy in this house.

BitterAndTwisted

If your partner agrees to selling up and starting afresh in a rental then do it. It's not even as if the place you are paying a mortgage on is either increasing in value or where you want to live.

You should be able to live on £620 a week quite easily, never mind the grant.

DO IT!

lauralou1234

Thankyou for your opinions. I guess it's just that we have discussed it with family and they all said it was stupid to remove ourselves from the property ladder.

BitterAndTwisted

But this mythical "property ladder" has you living in a !!!!!!-hole town where you don't want to be and is making you miserable.

You'll have eighteen grand stashed away in savings for when you want to hop back on again anyway. It's not a do-it-once-and-can't-do-it-ever-again dealio.

A property-ladder only has rungs on it above where you are if you're seriously over-paying and prices are soaring. Are they soaring in Blackpool? I really, really doubt it. I wouldn't live there if you paid me and I suspect I am not alone in that

longtermplanner

lauralou1234 wrote: »

I guess it's just that we have discussed it with family and they all said it was stupid to remove ourselves from the property ladder.

It was a stroke of marketing genius whoever invented the phrase "the property ladder". You live somewhere you hate, which is a financial asset when you have debts that you can't manage - selling is indeed the obvious answer.

Especially as you sound unlikely to have much spare money for quite a few years, so how will you manage if mortgage rates go up? Which they will at some point!

lauralou1234

Thanks all!