Does this financially ring true?

[ManyBooksLittleTime]

We bought our house nearly 20 years ago for 245k. Now, 19 years later, we still have 203k left on the mortgage. I know the first years is basically paying interest , but only 42k in 19 years??? We have had good interest rates too.Also, my husband reckons it will go down to 181k by August next year. Please can soneone more astute with finance let me know if these numbers can be right?

It's £2500 with interest. It might have raised from £1900 worth current rate increases.

But it doesn't explain why more wasn't repaid previously!

Really hope you can get to the bottom of this OP as it does not sound good. The figures you've quoted don't add up.

When remortgaging you say you increased your borrowing did you just sign without either reading what you signed or the mortgage broker explaining the figures? One thing’s for sure unless there’s a secret stash of cash somewhere your going to be paying out for more than the next 8 years.

No that doesn’t sound right at all. Either you are on an interest only mortgage, or your husband has been putting more on it than you realise. You need to see the statements.

we took out £110k 8 years ago (cheaper up north!) and we now owe £75k ish on a 25 year term.

You’ve used your mortgage as a credit card

Is there any chance that when you have remortgaged, he has extended the term once or twice - that would increase the interest owed.
You need to get the statements, but if you have changed the provider a few times, you might have a problem in getting them. Your husband ought to have them.
Some people are being a bit unreasonable about the OP not being on top of this. I do all the financial stuff - re-mortgaged several times and DH wasn't hugely involved. Admittedly I never added to a mortgage, and always reduced the term by an extra year when remortgaging.

I don't see how you'll pay that down in only 8yrs..

Compound interest…those that understand it and those that pay it.

In the most basic terms, to pay off 203k of capital ALONE in 8years you’d need to be paying £2115 per month. Then interest on top.

So it’s not possible for your to pay it off in 8 years.

I suspect your husband has remortgaged without your knowledge or borrowed more than agreed.

We’ve paid £12k off our capital paying less per month than you at a higher interest rate. The maths just doesn’t work.

This screams gambling. I’m sorry op.

It doesnt add up but on the other hand if you had a house that cost that much 20 years ago, it would be at least 1million now....so it's not all bad

How old are you OP?

As others have said, there's no way to pay that off in eight years at £1900 a month and certainly not if he switches now as the interest rate will be around 5%.

You say you added to the mortgage to pay off credit card debt so it sounds like your finances have not been adding up for many years and just kicking the can down the road.

You may need to think more radically like downsizing. Hopefully you have decent equity

If your mortgage payments are £1.9k now on a rate <1%, they're going to increase by a fairly hefty chunk @ManyBooksLittleTime. Unfortunately you're unlikely to get a rate <4%, even now. Also means less of your payments will be reducing the capital.
I'm baffled as to how you have so much left after so long, the statements should have the answers though.

The numbers are way off especially with interest rates as low as they have been. If your mortgage was 250K at 1.5% the total annual interest bill would be £3750pa. so how can you have paid off so little in the last 19 years.

Just how much more have you added to the mortgage or have you been on interest only for a while.

I have been tracking my mortgage monthly for years on a spreadsheet as I am actively paying it off early and your numbers are not credible. You need to see what has really been happening and ask why you still have so much outstanding.

To put it in context over 10 years I have paid off more than half of my mortgage which was bigger than your original amount.

100% this.

The lack of progress paying down the mortgage gives the first hint.

The disconnected-from-reality sudden acceleration of paying it down in the next few years suggests a hopeless gambler deluding themselves that a big win to cover it all up is waiting any day now.

True, best bet might be sell up, pay off the mortgage and take your half of the equity OP once you get to the bottom of what your DH has actually been up to.

It sounds like the husband may have committed mortgage fraud if he remortgaged without the wife's consent. If I were the wife I would request every mortgage statement (or online access) from the lender immediately and start by printing them all out for the file and take over organising all this as the husband seems to have been sneaky.

OP, I’ve paid about the same off of my mortgage in 1/2 the time and only been paying about 2/3rds of your monthly payment. So there is your sniff test to see if your situation is reasonable. Something is going on and I wouldn’t let it rest until you see all of the statements.

In 2003 Base Rate was 3.5% so even if your mortgage was at 4% interest in your first year would have been under £10K. At the peak in 2007 Base Rate went up to 5.75% before dropping back due to the financial crisis to historically low levels. From 2008 onwards interest rates have been exceptionally low. You should have been able to pay down significant amounts of capital.

Thank you all so much for your answers. I have been incredibly stupid not looking at statements and I'm surprised even more of you haven't told me so.Most of you have been really kind and explained things to me.

I have started to talk about this with my husband and the rest will be discussed tomorrow.

The good news is that we are going to pay 2.4k a month and the mortgage will be paid off in 8 years. He will pay 2/3 of it. Many of you have indicated this will clear it. It will be hard to manage though. But we need to do it.

I have also realised that I think , even better than the mortgage repayments, ( although I will definitely be looking at these) is that I can contact the company that secure the mortgage providers. They will have all the details for each time we have swapped and all of the financial details. I'll do this from work tomorrow .

The bad news is that I don't think my husband is explaining it accurately. He said that if we bought a house for 245 at 4 per cent it's the same as buying a house for 356k and that we have been paying off the difference. This sounds like bollocks because you have all been explaining to me how your mortgages have been steadily decreasing over time.

I had my own property years ago. I paid the mortgage and it decreased from the original amount.

He is going to put figures on paper to show me tomorrow evening!

We are both shit with money. Ironically we started getting into debt 20 years ago paying for childcare for me to work. Some of you are talking about a discrepancy of 100k though????

I guess I'll be busy tomorrow. I am really grateful for all the advice.

@ManyBooksLittleTime by now you shouldnt have a mortgage seeing as rates have been so low since 2008. However, if your house is now worth that much - then frankly you can sell up rather than try and pay it off

Thankyou for letting us know that for tonight OP you are ok 💐 Hope tomorrow proves to be productive xx

Plug your numbers into this and it will show you where you should be
www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/mortgage-rate-calculator/

Here is £245K at 4% over 27 years
Remaining Debt
0 £245,000
1 £239,850
2 £234,490
3 £228,913
4 £223,108
5 £217,067
6 £210,780
7 £204,237
8 £197,428
9 £190,342
10 £182,968
11 £175,293
12 £167,306
13 £158,994
14 £150,344
15 £141,341
16 £131,972
17 £122,222
18 £112,075
19 £101,515
20 £90,525
21 £79,088
22 £67,185
23 £54,798
24 £41,907
25 £28,491
26 £14,529
27 £0

It looks to me like you are about £100K short of where you should be after 19 years - £100K!

In fact you should be further ahead because interest rates have been below 4% for a long time.

Before you sign or agree to anything I would get your husband to email you all the mortgage statements and docs and then go by yourself to a financial advisor to go through them. This all sounds as shady as fuck.

if I were taking out. New mortgage tomorrow id clear it with 2.4k payments in 10years- you seem to have made no inroads at all. Where has all the extra borrowing gone and why weren’t you aware of it? 2.4k a month payments aren’t solving the problem, it’s masking some serious earlier mismanagement