Dont know what to do?

LegacyUser

Myself and the wife are pretty screwed.

We've really been scraping by with our mortgage over the last year although were 8k in arrears at the moment....

I'm employed full time and my wife is self employed with a fair amount of overheads.

I've been in contact with the bank over the arrears and am waiting for a call back to see the manager there to discuss our options.

We currently have a 3 year old and my wife is pregnant with our 2nd... She's not having a nice time of it as is really suffering with sickness and all the recent events have just made things worse.

To add to all this our mortgage has just gone up again, so it is now just 50 of being my entire wage. We simply cannot cope any longer. Some bills just get forgotten about the esb was cut off monday, lucky for us we had prerranged for the granparents to have our child for the night due to an appointment first thing tuesday, but we still had to sit in a cold dark house for 2 nights before we were reconnected.

We were discussing our options
1. We weather the storm, which is looking less and less likely
2. We sell up, cut our losses which if we're lucky would be less than 40k
3. We let the house either to the corpo or privately for 4 years to help with our mortgage..
which would still need to rent somewhere ourselves AND as it stands put at least 900 to the mortgage

dan_d

Um..not much advice other than keeping the channels of communication WIDE open with the bank.Put everything in writing, go to MABS if needs be.

You will not be allowed to sell up unless you can make up the difference in the price, ie, do you have a lump sum of 40k to cover the difference? As far as I know, you just can't do it. I know you're only considering the loss to yourself, but it's not you - you will still owe the bank that difference in price. And as far as I'm aware the sale just legally can't go through unless the difference is paid up.I'm open to correction, but I'm 99% certain that's how it works.

So your options now seem to be...

Talk to the bank and see what can be worked out (not so much an option, this is something you HAVE to do)
Consider renting out rooms in the house to help with the mortgage, assuming you have spare rooms
Emigrate and rent out, saving until you have amassed enough to sell the house and cover the shortfall. Bear in mind that if you do that and you have a tracker mortgage, you will lose the tracker mortgage (I don't think you have one by the sounds of it).

You certainly need to talk to your bank OP, then consider your options.I'm not trying to rain on your parade here, but the only way interest rates are going is up, I'm afraid, so you need to come up with a long term plan, not just a quick fix.

LegacyUser

Thanks for the input Dan,

We've been talking to the bank for a while and am waiting call to talk to one of the mortgage managers.

TBH selling the house was the last resort as neither me or the OH wanted to go through that route..

I'm sure theres a lot of people in a similar position but im on short on family close by to talk to and just needed to let of some steam more than anything.
We've been offered a dig out from family but like you say its not an answer for the long term which is what is needed!

travellingbid

Are you currently paying interest and capital or just interest on your mortgage? Might be a start to go to bank and request interest only for 6 months to give you some breathing space. Also there is a money makeover section on www.askaboutmoney.com. There are some great people over there that might be able to give you some advice. Agree with previous poster - whatever happens, keep in contact with the bank.