Heavy debt - Can I re-mortgage?

Yogi1968

Hello - please help!

I am a 47 year old male who lives with my wife. Between us we have around £50,000 of debt. We have a mortgage which we owe around £150,000. We are in the process of getting some refurbishments completed on our house and I anticipate that the value will be be between £190,000 - £200,000. We are not behind with our mortgage payments and have never missed any payments. There have been a couple of late payments to credit cards but as of yet, I have not missed any. Please advise what we can do. We dont really want to take out an IVA or anything like that. Can we re-mortgage with the lender we are with? We both have a good income and I am confident that in a few months I can catch up with things and start to pay some of my debt off. Thanks.

enthusiasticsaver

Putting unsecured debt on to a mortgage is a really bad idea. If you have a good income then your best option is to budget and look for savings in that. No quick way to reduce debt sadly whether on credit cards, overdrafts or a mortgage. Also increasing the amount on your mortgage rules you out of best remortgage deals as it increases the LTV percentage.

sourcrates

Agree with above, unless you address the reasons why you are £50,000 in debt, you may consolidate this time, but what happens in another year when you have another 50k of debt, and you cant consolidate ?


Its rarely a good idea turning unsecured debt into secured, you really need to start budgeting correctly, and if you both have good salaries, that means you must be spending on things you do not need.


A good shake up of your expenditure should produce some good results here.

leicestersq

You say that you have a good income, but you have £50k of unsecured debt. You must either have seen your income rise very recently, or you have a spending problem.

I would hold back on the refurbishments and use the money to pare down your unsecured debt.

How secure are your jobs? When we hit 50, the chances of redundancy and reduced incomes rise precipitously. I hope that you also have a solid in plan in place for dealing with that mortgage.

andyfromotley

Depends on yo0ur income tbh. But its not looking too likely at the moment. Thats a lot of personal debt and with some late payment markers on your record it doesnt look too good.

You certainly wouldnt be able to borrow enough to transfer your debt to your mortgage.

As people have said above turning unsecured debt into secured debt is generally considered a terrible idea.

The real solution here is to make adjustments to your spending and attack this debt with a passion. You will be surprised by how quickly yopu can get it down if you go into full attack mode. If you are really struggling with it contact step change or christians against poverty who give FREE debt advice.

Pixie5740

Some lenders won't allow remortgaging for the purpose of consolidation but some do so it really depends who your mortgage is with. As others have said though turning unsecured debt into secured debt is rarely a good idea. I could understand it though if the debt was built up increasing the value of the property through extensive renovations, loft conversion, or extension.

£50k seems like a lot of debt but it's all relative. If your household income was £40k it would be a lot of debt whereas if your household income was £140k it wouldn't be as bad.

How did you accrue £50 k of debt? Do you have something tangible to show for it or has just been general overspending?

Bouncybubbles

Hi OP just reading your original post and from what I can tell you are planning on just a remortgage and not consolidation? (apologies if I have read this wrong). I myself remortgaged with the same people and I am on a DMP. There are usually no credit checks just for a basic remortgage with the same provider however occasionally there is exceptions. However if you are planning on consolidating your debt this will be a different matter. I agree with the above posts RE: this is a bad idea as you do need to find the root cause of the debt issue. For example you say you both earn a good wage yet have a relatively modest mortgage and 50K of debt? Do you live a lavish lifestyle that you are unable to afford (I'm guilty of this) or do you do a lot of socialising etc? either way I think maybe consult the stepchange website to give an idea of what your options may be. They may not be anything drastic such as an IVA on the other hand that may be your main option it is hard to know for sure without seeing a SOA. However I digress from the original question but I will say don't hide from your debt it only gets worse if the initial problem is not solved

Wannamove

Hi
I agree with Bouncybubble's I read it that you were looking to just change you mortgage.
I am with the Halifax and also on a DMP with Stepchange, I've just managed to switch to a 2.84% fixed rate for 5 years. I was really pleased and it's all gone through with no issues. So if you are thinking of switching and not changing the years or amount of mortgage then it can be quite simple for them to change you over.

Good luck with it!