Hi all and hope you all had a great Christmas and have a prosperous New Year!
All is going well with my IVA apart from my mortgage being changed from interest only to repayment, in the summer. Payments have gone up from £850 to £1150 per month [:(!] . Halifax say they only do interest only for a maximum of 3 years, but other lenders seem to do "indefinate" interest only mortgages...
The house is currently worth about £240k and we owe about £178k on it. Has anyone been in the same situation (with Halifax) and talked to a human being at their call centre or in branch, and extended their interest only period!?
Sorry haven't got the answer ...however a similar thread earlier around a northern rock mortgage offered a suggestion of extending the term of the mortgage and spreading the increase in payments over a couple of additional years...not sure if the Halifax will allow this but it may be an option.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
There is a solution for everyone .... Just need to stay positive !
This is the third posting about interest only mortgages being switctched to repayment in as many days, which is rather ominous.
Halifax are one of the companies now clamping down on interest only mortgages, and moving the goalposts. We are with Halifax - they will let you extend the mortgage term to bring down the size of the repayments - will go up to age 70 if you have a sedentary job, (and even up to 75 with a letter from your employers). You can always reduce the term once your IVA is finished and you can afford higher pAYMENTS.
Try ringing out of normal office hours as the call centre in India will insist it cannot be done (only up to 65). Staff from this country all tell a different story.
More and more mortgage providers are starting to insist on moving over to repayment, starting with those who have fewer years left on the mortgage or are on the wronfg side of 50. So many mortgages are on an interest only basis, that mortgage companies are getting sweaty about how they are going to be paid off - with house prices falling there is no longer the guarantee that selling a property at the end of the mortgage term will recoup enough to pay it off.
Hi emptypockets, I am in a similar situation as you but with nram. Posted a thread on here yesterday and had some really good advice back. I wrote to nram last night asking if they would extend the terms on our mortgage, as you don't get to speak to anyone who can make a decision by phone.
Our mortgage is going up from 710 pm to 1180 in Jan. Ppty worth about 220k and mortgage 173k.
It may be worth a try to write to them. It will be interesting to follow your story, please let us know how you get on.
It's not a nice way to start the new year is it.
Good luck - littlemom
I'm with Halifax & found their mortgage advisors in branch really helpful. Might be worth seeing if you could make an appointment, although obviously it would have to go to head office.
I am potentially going to face the same issue next year as our 3 year fixed interest only mortgage will be up for renewal then and am praying they will let us continue on interest only (we are with Accord though), I do remember asking to extend the term a few years ago though by a few years and they refused as they said it would make little difference to our payments. I'm trying not to worry about it at the moment, they never mentioned having to go onto repayment when I refixed just before we went into the IVA so am hoping that it will just continue as is, otherwise it will wipe out all our disposable income altogether.
