Can you put my mind at ease

rosieandjim_4

Hi I don't mean to be thick but I still don'tunderstand what a charge is, we have a mortage with a building society and will pay it all back when the house is sold.Why would my credit come up? Sorry I don't mean to sound so silly, but if I can get away without anyone knowing I will be fine, as I said I am dealing with it but can't afford for it to crop up, so can someone enlighten me on these charges, thankyou.

Snaggles

When you take out a mortgage, the bank take a 'charge' over your property, it's something that is registered with the district land registry, so you can't sell your house without paying the mortgage company off, and if you don't pay your mortgage (ie default on the payments), they can eventually repossess your property.

If you take out 'secured' borrowing on top of your mortgage, whoever you have borrowed from will take a 'second charge' (just means they are second in line to the mortgage provider so would get their money AFTER the mortgage provider has got theirs, in the event of repossession).

But from the sound of it, yours is unsecured debt (ie not secured against your house).

Snaggles

I'm sorry if that's not very clear, someone else might be able to explain it better. Believe it or not, I deal with this sort of stuff for a living, but I've recently had a baby and it's mashed my brain a bit (a LOT!).

rosieandjim_4

Hi to put it in simple terms we are selling our house, repaying all the mortgage, and no further borrowing is required so is there any way they can find out about my current debts. Just paying back not asking for anything, don't understand the property charge bit.

rayday2

The property charge bit is if you had taken out a loan secured against the property you would know you have done this for a fact because it has to be witnessed and go on your deeds.

So don't worry about it, this is the only thing a solicitor could really talk about, so don't worry about that.

I hope you manage to keep things from your husband, it must be a huge worry for you. Goes against the thing of a problem shared is a problem halved I guess!

Take care

Snaggles

I'm sorry if I haven't explained it very well....

Are you certain that the debts are unsecured? If so, there should be no charge over your property and therefore no reason for anyone to be any the wiser about your debts just because you pay your mortgage off.

liz105

not being funny or anything, but are you planning to live off of the equity of your property? or get jobs whilst "travelling". as the latter might be difficult.

How much equity is there in the house? are you sure your creditors have no way of finding out you have sold up? If they look at your credit file again and see the mortgage is paid off in full they might wonder how you have done it.