Are people who own their own homes or have a mortgage worried about bills?

[gotelltheoldmandowntheroad]

If you have a mortgage or own a house outright, does it usually come along with being okay financially?

Do you all have thousands in the bank? I assume you do because things come up like repairs and services that can be expensive.

So with the energy hikes and other cost of living issues, what happens? Do you know you will have enough to cover the bills? Or are you high earners along with owning?

If you couldn't pay your utility bills would that mean your house would be under threat?

I know nothing about it all as no one in my family has ever had a mortgage.

Our mortgage is paid off so obviously our outgoings are much lower then they were and so we have been able to save. I'm not worried that we won't be able to pay the bills - but I still don't want to be spending 4 or 5 thousand every year on electricity! If we were still paying the mortgage it would be much more tricky - especially as our heating is electric (as there's no mains gas available here) and so is already more expensive.

Eh? How does having a mortgage mean I have a few thousand in the bank?! I wish 😄

I do have a "house pot" in Monzo, we top it up with any spare cash we have at the end of the month, it usually sits at £500 or so which in the grand scheme of things isn't really enough to cover any big issues that have come up in the past (new roof, new boiler, repointing, resealing windows and doors, new front door etc.) but it does help. Obviously with the bills on the up our contributions to this pot will decrease.

We own our house outright (we are old). Will not be using the heating this winter because I don't want to give those rapacious bastards any of our money.

We've got a mortgage, some but not much savings as we've had to spend some on the house. We are worried and know that we will probably fall into that group that gets no help at all even though we aren't at all wealthy and will be struggling. Lucky that you have a home for life for such an amazing rent, I'd still rather have my own home I think if at all possible, but I'm glad this option is available for those who need it.

Finally Paid off the mortgage after 30 odd years , but it's quite an old ( small ) house and needs maintenance : a boiler part was 240 the other week plus the cost of an annual service ( that has gone up from 55 to 67 in three years ) and that is fairly new.
Plus all the other bills , insurances car costs and food. The energy bills are 150 a month , they will double by next year too if the predictions are right.
How people pay a mortgage or rent with young children will manage I don't know.
We had it tough for many years , but we could always pay our fuel bills, these increases are off the scale :(

Yes I am worried, I have a mortgage and am going on maternity leave next month. I am the main earner.

I think in some ways there is more pressure on people with mortgages as it's almost impossible to relocate quickly to somewhere smaller/cheaper in order to make things more affordable if needed. It would take months for me to sell my flat.

It's much more to do with stage of life. Dependents all grown up and financially independent. Mortgage paid off. Could retire but enjoying work

... is very different when we first had a mortgage and had stretched ourself because it was practically straight out of college (post grad) with reasonable expectations of salary increases in the pipeline.

We were prepared to tighten our belts short term to have a house / mortgage which took every last penny for a year or two.

Others who own outright may be asset rich and cash poor, scraping out for money for roof repairs.

It all depends. Looking enviously at Germany / France where government policy leads to very much more modest raises in consumer energy costs.

Our fixed term is coming to an end soon and I am worried about the effect of the increased interest rate. Our monthly mortgage payment is likely to go up despite owing less. But, the mortgage is less than it would be to rent somewhere similar. Also, having a mortgage comes with more stability. I don't have to worry about the landlord kicking us out. Our utility bills are going up same as everyone else but hopefully we can absorb that increase by cutting back elsewhere. We have a few thousand in savings but that's more emergency money if a big job in the house needs doing. Every so often we will do an overpayment on the mortgage if we come into some extra cash. The mortgage is the number one priority.

Well I'm totally ignorant of the situation. I just assume that people with mortgages are financially sensible and I believe that there can be sudden costs of thousands and sensible people would have it in the bank ready. Also that they have a regular income that is a decent salary allowing for that buffer to exist.

That's all.

We have a mortgage and yes we are worried, especially as I will be on maternity pay. We've always lived within our means - no big expensive holidays, no purchases we can't afford to pay off. And now we have no idea what our monthly utility bills will be... The only saving grace is that we recently renewed our mortgage for 5 years, so we'll know where we are with that.

We are homeowners, middle income, and due to relatively cheap housing have disposable income and some savings. So we can afford the extra couple of hundred a month, but my concerns are about what happens to all those who rely on other people's fun spends for their livelihoods. I would much rather my money was going to eg the local pub, ice cream sellers if we go to the park etc.

If we didn't have enough coming in I'd pay the mortgage first and look to make cuts elsewhere.

He paid for it all up front yes when he came into some money unexpectedly. it enabled him to move up to where I live so he could be involved with his grandchild.

I suppose I'm less worried, because I control whether I stay here or not.

If I was renting, I'd be at risk of a landlord going bankrupt, the property being repo'd and me being evicted. Moving homes is an additional cost most people could do without.

My mortgage rate is under 2%, but when I took it out, I stress tested to 10%.

My parents said I should have bought a bigger place as the bank were prepared to lend more, but I wasn't prepared to overstretch myself. I'm very glad I stuck to my convictions as it's anyone's guess what's going to happen with interest rates!

@gotelltheoldmandowntheroad Surely though you can see that people's situations may change over the years? You can be in a great situation when you buy and then years later things may have changed. It's not necessarily about being sensible. For example, my parents were both working when they bought a house years ago, my mother got seriously ill and insurance wouldn't cover it for that reason, suddenly a two income household became one.

Your home doesn’t just get taken. Say you don’t pay other debts but pay the mortgage, if you can’t pay you open credit cards to pay the bills. The credit card bill goes up and you pay it when you can. If you can’t pay the credit card and have 50k debt say, they won’t take a 350k house for a 50k debt, but after months and months (giving you more time to get on your feet) they could send bailiffs, who take stuff and possessions to cover the debt. If you don’t have 50k possessions but have 10k that leaves 40k, they will then more than likely try for the house then but again that would take months. People would sell possessions, cars, get 5 jobs to keep the house so it’s unlikely it would get to point where a house is actually ceased.

I've got a mortgage (small), savings too. I am worried.

Luckily I have a small house with 2 spare rooms (one a box room) but am planning on renting out the larger room if I need to.

I also have a cast iron stove in front room which I do use in winter, it heats the whole house - you have to buy coal/wood and get chimney swept (and know how to light a fire) but it was there when I bought the house and I'm pleased I kept it.

Thank you, yes this is what I didn't get.

Yes we feel the same. We can cut back on eating at our village pub, no treats like a massage for me, not buying pastries from the local bakery, but then will all these small businesses actually survive? It's a sad thought.

You have a very skewed perception of homeowners!

In the past I've been a homeowner but also unemployed and on social security (no housing costs provided).

Ran up loads of debt.

But* debt is so much cheaper when you have a mortgage. I could borrow £14k on under 10%. So I ran up debts to pay the bills.

Mortgage always got paid. (But mortgage providers are much much more lenient than landlords (private or social) when it comes to arrears). I've known mortgage debts of thousands and the person gets to stay. If things get really bad you can go into a trust deed to keep your house and pay off only some of your debts. It wrecks your credit but you keep your home.

With all bills there is always room for negotiation with companies. It costs them so much to pursue you. Go to CAB and they will write to your debtors and agree an affordable payment plan. Even people with thousands in utility/ council tax debts can pay minimal amounts towards the debt if they show through a 3rd party (eg cab) they can't afford more.

Never leave yourself short of food or not paying rent to pay other bills.

Anyone who can get a mortgage should. It has so many hidden benefits over renting. There's so much more security and options if things go wrong.

Lol at 'thousands for repairs'. If your boiler breaks, yes you may have to go without for a while but IME landlords aren't exactly speedy at repairs either!

I'm in the last weeks of my mortgage and the money will be going on a tutor for gcse year. I was very lucky and did a 2yr energy fixed until June 2023 so I have time on my side. Lone parent who is going to cross my fingers.
I don't have much in savings. I'm stuffed if the car breaks.

Yes. Mortgage or rent is first.

Keeping a roof over your head comes first. Then food. Then heating.

People may argue about whether heating comes before food, but you always always always prioritise your rent or mortgage repayments.

We have a mortgage and have some savings and both work(I am part time). We are worried about all the price increases. It's going to be a really tough time for most people. I wouldn't consider us high earners, we earn just under 50k between us. Hopefully we will still be able to afford all the bills, we will find ways of cutting back though, no holidays, no takeaways, careful when getting the food shops and turning lights off in the home etc.

I've had utility debts in the past which spiralled by quite a bit (long story!). They can take you to court to enforce payment, and they can insist on fitting a prepayment meter and from that they can deduct money to pay off your debt. So for example, every time you top up with £10, they can snaffle £7 to cover previous debt so effectively you'll only get £3 of use from the £10 you topped up with. You can't avoid topping up because you need the electricity/gas etc so it's a way for them to definitely start to recoup what you owe them.

But that's the last resort - luckily I managed to sort it out before it reached that point. But those are the steps that energy suppliers will normally take if you rack up big debts. OFGEM has a code of conduct that energy suppliers have to stick to re customers in financial difficulty.

Your mortgage and home security is never at risk. If however, I was in rented, I can imagine the landlord would be very pissed off if I had gotten behind with energy bills and the energy company was insisting on fitting a prepayment meter. I much prefer the stability that comes with a mortgage even though I have very little savings currently.

I know! thank you that is really informative.

What about the green targets then? Another thing I'm curious about is what type of costs these will incur for home owners in the next ten years? Isn't there something about making every home green or self-sufficiong or carbon neutral? I've seen articles about grants of thousands to help, so how much will it cost overall and what would be the repercussions for not meeting them?

My parents said I should have bought a bigger place as the bank were prepared to lend more, but I wasn't prepared to overstretch myself. I'm very glad I stuck to my convictions as it's anyone's guess what's going to happen with interest rates

We live in a smaller house that we could have in theory afforded, but like you I wasn't prepared to take too much of a risk. For a lot of the mortgage term interest rates have been really low, but we started off on 7% and then had a fix of around 5%. We also paid ours over 20 years to get rid of it as soon as possible.

Now I am mortgage free and a slightly larger house would be nice, but I wouldn't do anything differently (except not get a 5 year fix, we had two years on 5% when interest rates plummeted which was very annoying and cost us about £2K extra but for the first three years it did work for us).