Cant afford to live....help

continualdiamond

OH has been unemployed for 2 mths. Where having to borrow money off his parents at least a week before i am paid ( i get paid monthly). This is all without paying council tax, which of course starts again in April.

We are in a DMP, only been in it for 3 mths, last 2 mths have been £1 token payments.

Soon something will give, ie a payment missed and im worried it could be the mortgage. Do i just miss payments and get my house repossessed. I know its not a nice thing to go through, but our house wont sell for the same price we paid for it, it needs work doing to it and its got things we started and now cannot afford to finish. We paid £82000 in Oct 06, 100% mortgage, our mortgage statment Dec 07 said we'd need to pay about £86,500, thats with fees added on due to being in a 5 yr fixed mortgage deal.

We wouldn't get that kind of money for it.

I cannot afford to go BR (£23,000 in debt) as cannot afford the fees. Rang CCCS, who said id have to save up for it, its £485 a person, saving £970 i have no chance, im short on money to live on, i dont have enough to save.

Ideas......please

floss2

:hello:

Who is your DMP with?
What is your income - salary & benefits?
Are you claiming everything you are entitled to? see www.entitledto.co.uk
Can you post a full SOA (statement of affairs - see MSE Andrea's post at the top of the board for help)

Floss x

Merlot

Hi and welcome to DFW.

Can you post a full soa (incomings and outgoings). List the one you gave to CCCS and your real SOA (there is often a difference).

Can you telephone your mortgage company and inform them of the situation, can you change to interest only, or opt for a payment holiday. Do you work? Could you increase your hours, could your OH take a temp job via an agency just now. Look at Monster job site, get the local paper.

The main thing is to pay your priority debts just now, otherwise you can end up in a worse situation, the priorities are, mortgage, council tax, gas, electricity, water and any secured borrowings.

Make sure you are receiving any help you are entitled to via this link: http://www.entitledto.co.uk/

Well done for posting, and I look forward to seeing your SOA, without it, we will not be able to offer indepth advice.

Merlot.x.

Got2change

Welcome - you have come to the right place!

I know for sure that other people will offer far better advice than I and one of the first things will be to "post a Statement of Affairs" - i.e. a detailed breakdown of your income and outgoings.

Firstly though - re. bankruptcy (BR) - (big) IF you want to go down that route and are prepared for the possibility of losing your house, you could stop paying the mortgage and use that amount for saving to your BR fees.

I am sure that someone will say that it's not that simple but I have heard it suggested here before. Mostly people who have a mortgage/own their own home will think twice before petitioning for BR due to equity in the property being used to settle debts and therefore sale of house being forced upon them - BUT, negative equity has a bearing on whether or not that would happen - although having said that, if you stop paying the mortgage to save the BR fees (do you both need to go BR - i.e. have debts in joint names?), it may be the lender who repossesses rather than Official Receiver (OR) forcing sale.

Just thoughts for now.
Take care.

CCCS_Sarah

continualdiamond wrote: »

OH has been unemployed for 2 mths. Where having to borrow money off his parents at least a week before i am paid ( i get paid monthly). This is all without paying council tax, which of course starts again in April.

We are in a DMP, only been in it for 3 mths, last 2 mths have been £1 token payments.

Soon something will give, ie a payment missed and im worried it could be the mortgage. Do i just miss payments and get my house repossessed. I know its not a nice thing to go through, but our house wont sell for the same price we paid for it, it needs work doing to it and its got things we started and now cannot afford to finish. We paid £82000 in Oct 06, 100% mortgage, our mortgage statment Dec 07 said we'd need to pay about £86,500, thats with fees added on due to being in a 5 yr fixed mortgage deal.

We wouldn't get that kind of money for it.

I cannot afford to go BR (£23,000 in debt) as cannot afford the fees. Rang CCCS, who said id have to save up for it, its £485 a person, saving £970 i have no chance, im short on money to live on, i dont have enough to save.

Ideas......please

Hello,

If you are really struggling with your DMP, please come back for a review as this option may not be the best for you.

Was Bankruptcy an option when you had your initial appointment with CCCS? If so and this is something you are thinking of CCCS have a specialist Bankruptcy support department that can give you detailed advice re Bankruptcy. Who are your utility providers? Some companies can provide trust funds to help with Bankruptcy fees?

How do you Budget? Try keeping a spending diary sometimes this helps to keep track of what you have got coming in and what going out.

Hope this information helps, you might want to re post this on the bankruptcy board as there is a lot of people that have been in a similar situation as yourself.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask

Good Luck
Sarah

continualdiamond

DMP = Payplan

OH = JSA + waiting to heard back about council tax benefit
Me = OH having to contact inland revenue for income info in order for me to claim working tax credit as do not have revelant P60/P45s anymore.

Cannot claim anything else.

SOA set up with payplan when OH in work:


Income Amount
Total Income (A) £1920.00
Client's Earnings (net) - £920.00 per month
Partner's Earnings (net)- £1000.00 per month

Total Expenditure (B) - £1648.68
Mortgage - £439.64 per month
Council Tax - £102.00 per month
Mortgage Payment Protection - £16.00 per month
Building Insurance - £25.43 per month
CCJ - £10.00 per month
Electricity/Gas - £55.00 per month
Water - £33.13 per month
Hire Purchase (1) - £171.10 per month
TV Licence - £11.50 per month
Telephone/Internet/TV - £40.00 per month
Payment Cover - £17.88 per month
Work - £10.00 per month
Road Tax/MOT - £18.00 per month
Insurance - £40.00 per month
Petrol/Oil/Diesel - £200.00 per month
Maintenance - £30.00 per month
Breakdown Cover - £8.00 per month
Food - £320.00 per month
Clothing/Footwear - £40.00 per month
Dentist/Prescriptions/Glasses - £20.00 per month
Pets - £25.00 per month
Hairdressing - £16.00 per month

Income – expenditure = £271.32 to creditors

SOA now OH unemployed:

Income Amount
Total Income (A) - £1176
Client's Earnings (net) - £920.00 per month
Partner's Earnings (net) - £256 JSA

Total Expenditure (B) - £1310.68
Mortgage - £439.64 per month
Council Tax - £102.00 per month
Mortgage Payment Protection - £8.00 per month OH had to cancel his as told could not claim on it.
Building/Contents Insurance - £25.43 per month
CCJ - £10.00 per month
Electricity/Gas - £55.00 per month
Water - £33.13 per month
Hire Purchase (1) - £171.10 per month
TV Licence - £11.50 per month
Telephone/Internet/TV - £40.00 per month
Work - £0.00 per month No longer need this as I have the car while OH not working.
Road Tax/MOT - £0.00 per month
Insurance - £40.00 per month
Petrol/Oil/Diesel - £108.00 per month £25 roughly a week
Maintenance - £0.00 per month
Breakdown Cover - £15.75 per month this is the real price, payplan said could only put down £8 with them
Food - £216.00 per month try and do £50 or less a week now
Clothing/Footwear - £0.00 per month
Dentist/Prescriptions/Glasses - £0.00 per month
Pets - £25.00 per month
Hairdressing - £0.00 per month
Debt payment to payplan - £28.88 (£17.88 like in above SOA + £11 which is £1 to each creditor) OH will hopefully claim on this, his old job have just filled out the claim for, finally, so it will be sent off soon and then all our creditors will get the normal DMP payment again.

Income – expenditure = -£171.31

My council tax will slightly rise, im band A.

I work full time in a school, been applying for small hours + in school holiday clubs jobs even before OH was made unemployed, not successful yet. Cannot increase hours at my school as I already do 2 jobs anyway.

I know some things are at £0 in my new SOA, but they have to be.

Ok please remember 1st SOA is what payplan came up with, I know your going to say some things are wayyyyy above what they should be. But payplan kept saying we should put down what they recommended, so we did.

Cleosmum

Can you claim on the mortgage protection insurance? If not then was it mis-sold to you?

RAS

Can you get any WTC, HB etc? have you checked with www.entitledto.com?

foreign_correspondent

can your OH not get some agency/temporary work? even casual work at minimum wage would help keep your head above water, and they can often get you working pretty much straigt away. Also looks better than a long stretch of unemployment in his CV

foreign_correspondent

also, how about a lodger if you have a spare room? You can let a room out in your house and I think you can keep about the first £3000 tax free. I know it may not be ideal, but if you took someone on short term it may get you past this stage and mean not losing your home. Depending on where you live lodgers tend to pay about £50 a week upwards, which may help.

continualdiamond

I myself cannot claim on mortgage protection as its illness and unemployment. OH cannot claim because it had a 90 day access and we only had the policy for 60 days before he became unemployed. Asked if we could then wait 30 days before he claimed to meet the 90 day access, told no.

Have checked entitledto.com and cannot claim a single thing. Pending claim on council tax benefit and i could get £22 a week working tax credit, but OH is waiting for income details from inland revenue before i can claim.

No lodger, we only have a 2 bedroom flat and the 2nd bedroom has the pc desk and is used for storage.

Just finding it a real struggle. Fridge broke 2 weeks ago, OH parents ended up buying us a new one, that wasn't cheap, £200. Toilet basin is cracked and leaking water all the time, carpet is always damp and smells because of it, but cant afford a new toilet + someone to fit it.