Some guidance please

Beatle_Ray

Hello,
Firstly thank you in advance to all those who reply, I need some guidance as what to do long term and short term. Here are the facts, I work F/T and have been in the same job now for just over 23 years, my wife works part time and we have one grown up daughter who does not live at home, the company I work for is having a poor time and the expectation is that it will fold some time before the half year, I'd say that's about a 90% chance of that happening, here are the financial facts
Income £35,000 pa me + £7,000 d/w
House valued in November 16 £385,000
Mortgage arrears £135,000
HSBC credit card £9400
Lloyds credit card £7000
Santander o/d £1800
Savings £0
Pension £94,000


With the other household bills which are all as cheap as possible I'm not making any in roads on the debt and is getting a bit depressing as previously I paid off £81,000 of debt through my inheritance three years ago and wasn't able to pay it all off, we had a long week-end in Spain which cost approx. £500 in 2013 as a kind of reward, I felt I should do something with the money I received rather than just pay off the debt and also we hadn't had a holiday in about five years. Short term I want to clear the debt and start living again, we were never reckless with money the huge debt came about because of five unsuccessful attempts at IVF and the rest of the debt is just interest, at the end of the year be able to take the 25% tax free off the pension, not an ideal situation but at least I'll be able to rid myself of the debt and free up £600 worth of repayments each month and not wait until I'm 67 to start living, that would leave £76K in the pension with another 12 years to invest with it, longer term the threat of redundancy looms, would it make sense here to downsize the house, we have about £270K worth of equity in the house, all I'm looking for is just a little bit of clarity to say if I'm doing the right thing or not, as a back drop the constant repayments and the fact that I haven't done anything with my life for the past ten years is starting to get me down a bit, I don't want to wake up aged 67 and say all debts paid where is the beach, might be grumpy to enjoy it then, please advise

January2015

It may be a daft question from me, but I don't understand the house/mortgage figures you have given.

You say the house is valued at £385k
You detailed mortgage arrears of £135K
Even if you have no mortgage that leaves £250k of equity but you have said you have £270k of equity. Has the house value really increased £20k since last November?

Is the £135k really arrears, or is that your mortgage itself.

Apart from that it would help everyone advise you on a more sound basis if you could post up a full statement of affairs (SOA).

I can't find the link for the SOA but hopefully someone will pop by shortly and post it up for you.

January2015

Hopefully this is the correct SOA link. Remember to select format for MSE at the end.

Beatle_Ray

Hello,
I just did the SOA but it didn't seem to upload, in answer to your question Jan 15 I think I got carried away with the equity value, yes you are right it is £250K, the mortgage has £135K left to pay, I think they would lock me up if I owed them that in arrears, does that make more sense now
Thanks

sourcrates

Beatle_Ray wrote: »

Hello,
I just did the SOA but it didn't seem to upload, in answer to your question Jan 15 I think I got carried away with the equity value, yes you are right it is £250K, the mortgage has £135K left to pay, I think they would lock me up if I owed them that in arrears, does that make more sense now
Thanks

You need to click the "format for MSE button"

It should then upload.

January2015

Beatle_Ray wrote: »

Hello,
I just did the SOA but it didn't seem to upload, in answer to your question Jan 15 I think I got carried away with the equity value, yes you are right it is £250K, the mortgage has £135K left to pay, I think they would lock me up if I owed them that in arrears, does that make more sense now
Thanks

I did wonder if you had found the most lenient mortgage lender in the world :rotfl:

Thanks for clarifying :beer: I'll wait for your SOA and will take a look along with other forum members

laurenh1

Hi

A SOA would be a great help to see where if any cut backs csn be made. Are your credit cards interest free if not it would be well worth while to transfer them to interest free or at least lower cards.x

January2015

Another quick question - have you calculated what redundancy payout you are likely to receive? There is a statutory redundancy calculator on the .gov.uk website

Once you had an idea of that, it may (or may not) factor into whichever option you decide to go forward with. One thing I would say is don't use redundancy to settle debts. You need that to live on to see you through until you find alternative employment. That's just my view though and others may have more experience/knowledge and be able to give sound reasons for either using redundancy to settle debts or not.

laurenh1

I wondered about the mortgage too l!!!

Beatle_Ray

Hello it still hasn't worked, I must be doing something wrong, my aim here is some sort of balance where I don't have to worry about paying creditors all the time and knowing that if I have £200 spare at the end of the month I can do something with it, at the moment we're just existing and after a while that is not much fun particularly when on a cold winters morning I'm scraping the ice off the car window at 6am for no financial reward at the end of the month and after 10 years its beginning to get me down a bit

January2015

Beatle_Ray wrote: »

Hello it still hasn't worked, I must be doing something wrong, my aim here is some sort of balance where I don't have to worry about paying creditors all the time and knowing that if I have £200 spare at the end of the month I can do something with it, at the moment we're just existing and after a while that is not much fun particularly when on a cold winters morning I'm scraping the ice off the car window at 6am for no financial reward at the end of the month and after 10 years its beginning to get me down a bit

I know that feeling only too well. I felt my OH and I were working and all the money was going out in bills. We felt we had no life and were just existing. Our solution was a DMP - which may or may not be an option for you. Everyone is different.

What I'm trying to say is that just 2 years ago I was were you are now as in my mindset and outlook on life. Our life today is still full of debt, but we have an affordable plan to clear it and we have a life worth living. We no longer exist, we live and we enjoy our life. Just to say also we own our home, with a mortgage. We have over £250k equity but selling our home would be a last, final resort for us. We believe we can get through this without needing to sell. The last two years have shown us this is more than possible.

Once you work out how to post up an SOA people will be able to give you suggestions.