you don't have to pay your mortgage while on maternity leave - AIBU to want to shout about it?!!

[threeleftfeet]

AIBU to want to shout this from the rooftops so more people know about this?!

Many mortgage providers let you have a mortgage holiday, no questions asked, while you're on maternity.

I had no idea about this, I found out by accident as I rang my mortgage provider (Halifax) to ask about something else and the nice man at the other end told me.

It made so much difference to us to simply not pay the mortgage for 6 months after DS was born.

I suspect a lot of mums go back to work earlier that they would otherwise because of the pressure of bills, and would have a much easier time being a new mum if only they knew about they didn't have to pay the mortgage.

Not all mortgage companies do this I don't think, but they don't make a big deal out of it - yours might well do without you knowing about it.

HTH someone!

Gosh my dh took a weeks holiday with both children as both were born at his busiest time of year. Ironically he has a fabulous relationship with both children despite working long hours self employed.

But we may need to look at extending our mortgage as the current climate isn't looking good for dh's business.

Marriedinwhite - if your first mortgage was £80k you were very lucky. Homeowning these days is far tougher. People are generally coping with at least £200k's worth of mortgage to get started, and relying on two incomes to do so. That doesn't make your generation any more prudent, just fortunate that you were homeowners pre-boom.

Hear hear Longtalljosie. I think some of the people on here saying that you shouldn't have a baby if you don't have six months' mortgage payments in the bank don't have a clue - loads of people would just never be able to have children in that case, because by the time you've got some savings (having used every penny as a deposit on the house in the first place, and then spent money on all the things that houses inevitably need to have done to them) you're not fertile any more.

We married three years before our first child and wouldn't have started a family unless we had been sure we could manage on one income and care for that family.

How fucking smug. Im sure most people would prefer to be in that position, but accidents happen, and it is much harder to survive on one salary now with the price of housing.

And as for the bollocks about reneging on your contractual obligations by taking a mortgage holiday, the option to take a mortgage holiday was in the contract I signed so they would have not been fulfilling their contractual obligations to not allow us one. We had to have an unblemished payment record in order to take it.

We had a mortgage holiday while I was on maternity leave with dd1. It had been part of the plan ever since DH went back to Uni and I was the main wage earner. I don't regret it, I had waited a long time for DD and when I eventually fell pregnant I didn't want to go back to work after 6 months, hell, I didn't want to go back after 11 months but had no choice by that time. Our mortgage payments did increase but as DH is now working it isn't a huge problem and we hope to overpay in the future which will bring us back to where we were.

A mortgage holiday isn't ideal, but as I say, I have no regrets :)

Thanks for the info, OP.

I am self employed, and it may well be that it would suit our family for DP to take a sabbatical from work, or to work part time for a few years when we have children.

We do have 6 months mortgage payments saved, but as you said, it may well make more sense for us to purchase a payment holiday rather than use up those savings.

I am also surprised at the attitudes on these threads. I wonder if the people responding negatively are the sort of people who never review and shop around for mortgage deals, and would never make use of a 0% credit offer, let alone use a credit card as part of their financial management.

I do get that some people have a very low tolerance to financial risk, but our whole capitalist society is built on financial risk, and if you have a zero risk approach and don't ever take advantage of playing the system, then you will end up getting played.

For example, DP and I manage quite a lot of our finances through credit cards, which are always paid off in full each month. Yes, there is a risk that if something happened, we might not be able to pay off the cards and could end up in debt. However, we both assessed the risk of this as being small, and in a couple of years of doing this we have converted enough loyalty points to air miles that we will be flying for free to South America for a holiday this year, a saving of nearly £2,000.

By all means decide that the OP's suggestion is not for you, but get off your high horse about your attitude to financial risk.

Hahahahah - don't bother with the payment holiday during maternity leave if you are with the Halifax. They fucked up mine and I ended up only using one month of the holiday, someone didn't process the paper work and I ended up getting daiy phone calls as I was in arrears and they refused to believe me that it was their fault. Didnt help my PND any and they always had a knack of phoning when DD was screaming her head off.

Fuckers

I think 20 years ago, incomes were a little lower longtalljosie. My DH has never had a salary; always dependent on fees and other people paying. In 1991 they were only just coming through and usually not on time. Our position then was often quite precarious and if a big client didn't pay a bill on time or went under then we were at considerable risk.

There were always people who didn't plan. Educated people should always be able to take steps to plan well. We have taken huge risks over the years but they have been calculated - we have always ensured that whatever happened though, that the dc would be OK.

well..

I would also like to point out that there is a £100 Per Week income disregard on Child Tax Credits/ Working Tax credits - that's right, whilst on mat leave you can deduct £100 for every week of leave from your final stated total, meaning you get paid more child tax credits...(if eligible of course!)

Very Useful To Know, and actually gets you more money rather than re-arranging your expenditure. Made my periods of mat leave as sole earner much easier!

Married in white your posts are really a unique mix of arrogance backed up by ignorance. You should expand your world a bit, it would be of immense benefit to you..

Oh I do agree serenity, I think I should go and live in a tower block and send my children to a sink school. It would be so enriching for us all.

Of course incomes were a little lower 20 years ago! It is clear that the ratio of house prices to earnings is a hell of a lot higher now though so housing costs take up a much higher proportion of people's wages. www.mortgageguideuk.co.uk/blog/house-prices/house-prices-income/

It is a lot harder than it was back then to be able to afford to save 6 months salary or be able to afford to live on one salary.

"The flat has doubled in value since I bought it so no worries about not being able to repay it unless something really drastic happens to the markets!"

I had to check the date of the op after reading this... Um have you read the news recently?

Anyway surely better to have a short term loan if needed rather than extending your mortgage.

I love this thread.

Now the bar has been set so that people should not have children until they can afford to buy a property outright... Fabulous!

You're being fastidious. You clearly have reason to think your life could descend into financial disaster beause you show a unusual attitude to risk, (as well as a lack of understanding of the obligaions of a mortgage) within these posts at least. it's somewhat damaging to be so negative.

I suppose that would solve the problem of school places, poor people breeding and pressure on council accomodation. Hooray!

I am a bit amazed that there are people in the UK who genuinely think that property prices in the UK have remained stable in relation to wages over the last few decades. Just super stuff, keep it coming!

Smells like- a short term loan would be more expensive than extending the mortgage.

fastidious means neat and tidy

So am baffled by that post too

Wah, autocorrect. That's Facetious

Longtalljosie is quite correct about house prices. I'll never disagree with anyone who argues for more financial prudence, however unattractive and out of touch they manage to make themselves sound when they do it. Of course it's preferable to have six months mortgage payments in the bank before conceiving. It's preferable to have six months mortgage payments in the bank just generally, whatever your circumstances.

But the fact is that this is now unachievable for many of us who were too young to buy property before 2000. Not because of any fault of our own, but because housing as a proportion of earnings is now much more expensive than it was. This is true of rentals too, and renters on maternity leave can't take any kind of payment holiday. There are some people who simply would not be young enough to conceive if they waited until they had 75k of equity in their home. Bully for those who were able to do so. No doubt it took plenty of hard work and good judgement. It also took a big dollop of unearned good luck, good luck they wouldn't have enjoyed had they been born 15 years later (or indeed some years earlier).

Aha!

This thread is fab, I'm really enjoying it. Feel for the OP though!

We just increased our mortgage to get the house extended.

God FORBID that anyone utilise any of the facilities provided under the terms and conditions of their financial products. It's OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!

SQ- I think you are being unnecessarily risky insisting that people should own their home outright before having children. They should also factor in that the child may be born with a disability so one parent would have to stay home full time. Of course, the working parent could then be injured in an accident and not be able to work, so it would probably be a good idea to save up enough money so neither parent had to work.

But the you can't trust the financial markets, so putting money in the bank would be risky as only £85,000 would be protected, so it would be less risky to hold enough money to support a family for a lifetime in gold bullion.

Which would be ok, provided that there are no technological advances in your lifetime that would wipe out the value of gold. No. Gold is too risky. You need a means to support your family that does not rely on external valuations. I think a small holding is best, so at least you can feed your family. But of course with a disabled child and disabled parent the family could not run the small holding themselves, so it is best to factor in employing someone to run it.

I think that covers it. In order to be in a financial position to raise a family with no financial risk, you need to have a mortgage free house and small holding which generates enough income to employ someone to manage it. Ok?

And you had better be in a position to do all this by the time the woman is 35, or you are being reckless with the chances of conceiving any children.

Anyone who doesn't follow Thistledew (TM) Accounting Advice is just too feckless to be allowed to breed.

"Smells like- a short term loan would be more expensive than extending the mortgage."

Would it? 10% over say 3 years v anywhere between 2 & 20% over 20 odd years?

I dunno I'm shit at maths. So it's a genuine question

I just like dealing with debt asap. It makes me uneasy

Sardine queen you obviously dont understand - YOU WILL HAVE TO PAY IT BACK!!!! Will some one please think of the children??!!??