Getting rid of a London-sized Mortgage

misscousinitt

Nice shiny soa for the new year...you could maybe sue any extras left over to build up an emergency fund - you never know that's round the corner! And then once you've done that, you can chuck any extra at the mortgage.

MCI

poddle911

Hi Tropically, I'm a bit of a lurker here. We have a slightly smaller mortgage than you (Brighton-sized) and are really inspired by your OPs and ambitious targets But I'm really blown away by the fact that you chose to forgo airbnb income to host someone who needs your help. Brava, lady! :T

Also, really brilliant tip about the fourex machines - I took a bag of random currency last time I was in London and exchanged it for £39

michelle09

Hi! Our mortgage is not quite as big as yours, but it's still a London mortgage.

Your council tax bill is quite a bit lower than around here, lucky you.

Definitely going to try and find one of those coin machines. I have 15 odd currencies lying around, not much in each but should pick up a few pounds for each. A couple probably won't exchange but that'd be a good start!

Is your airBnB still going strong?

Tropically

Thanks Michelle, poddle, misscousinitt and tryharder for stopping by!

The benefit of living in a "dangerous" London neighbourhood is the council tax is cheap. I've only had to avoid a police cordon twice.

We have made our first £500 over-payment!! We need to do them in chunks of £500 or else they aren't accepted. I think that means our balance is £312,407. What happens now? I don't have online banking but do I get a letter or something? Unfortunately we can only do part-redemption, which means that our monthly mortgage payment goes down. We are going to compensate by then paying in £501 next month or whatever the difference is. I think it's still good but not as good as being able to overpay and reduce the term.

poddle911

Hurrah for the OP! Who's your mortgage with? We can make any OPs, but only a payment over £500 triggers them to recalculate the minimum payment at which point they do send a letter. We have 2 different rates on our mortgage and have to phone them up the day after we make an OP to tell them where we want it allocated - rubbish!

I'm so jealous of people being able to check on online banking! (So geeky )

michelle09

Those are really specific OP terms! I don't know if that's usual - we're with HSBC and it's all online banking. You can just put money into the mortgage account like you would switch it between any other account. I'm the opposite, I like our minmum payment going down, but it is so easy to OP...

I thought that generally better off areas had lower council tax? I used to live in Toxteth, enough of police cordons and riots for one lifetime, I think!

Definitely good though. Well done on the OP.

Tropically

poddle911 wrote: »

Hurrah for the OP! Who's your mortgage with? We can make any OPs, but only a payment over £500 triggers them to recalculate the minimum payment at which point they do send a letter. We have 2 different rates on our mortgage and have to phone them up the day after we make an OP to tell them where we want it allocated - rubbish!

I'm so jealous of people being able to check on online banking! (So geeky )

I would LOVE to have online banking for the mortgage. I feel calmed when I check my regular online banking and would be so happy to see that balance decrease right away. At the moment, I have no correspondence from the banking showing the reduced mortgage amount! We are with Bank of Ireland.

Michelle09, luckily no riots here, not even when they had the recent ones in Brixton. We did have a battle in the 1970s though. They are really specific terms, apparently they will take my money in less than £500 chunks but only apply it once we reach £500. I filed a complaint because they made it sound really easy to overpay while we were choosing a mortgage. Maybe I am misinterpreting the text, which says:

"If you make a payment of less than £500 and either do not tell us how you want the money applied, or you are within an ERC period, then the money will be credited to your account. This will reduce the interest you pay with effect from the start of your next interest period, but it will not reduce your monthly payments or remaining mortgage term."

We can't reduce the mortgage term without going through affordability tests and later on the page it says: There is no ERC if each payment is at least £500 (individual payments of less than £500 cannot be applied as a part-redemption).

Totally confusing. Anyway my lovely boyfriend has got a new job offer with a very large salary increase. To the tune of £10,000 more. Contracts haven't been signed yet so not counting chickens but it would be really nice. It would mean he is paid more than me again so I'm sure he will be happy about that.

Tropically

Sometimes I think this is the only nice place on the internet! The only place where people are genuinely nice and cordial all the time.

Anyway this month has been terrible for spending. Really terrible. I was really busy at work which meant I couldn't meal plan and ending up getting breakfast and lunch out each day for two weeks. My boyfriend has been absorbed with going to the gym (which he really needs to do) and his new job contract etc. I basically have no money left for the month. I spent last week making a lot of freezer meals, e.g. pulled pork mac and cheese and vegan chilli, pierogi and soups. Hopefully we will be set now for another outbreak of mad work rush.

We have agreed to continue to host our refugee until the end of March. The charity that is meant to be taking care of him is so disorganised, I am worried they won't be able to find him a new spot to live. But he can't stay with us forever.

Working so much has just been terrible for the budget and I'm very depressed about it. We also have a busy month socially. Ugh.

michelle09

That is rubbish. Can you remortgage with someone else or is this going to be ok longterm?

Did your boyfriend manage to sign the new contract? Least the extra money would help towards the worse month. Good on you for helping a refugee out though, it's impressive.

Jessy103

Chin up tropically! We all have our bad months and you will come out the otherside wiser for it!! Take care xxx