Mortgage payment holiday in exceptional circumstances - is this worth pursuing?

[EagleRay]

I own a house which is worth approx £500k at the moment, and mortage is approx £140k and on a very low interest rate. Repayments are around £800/m, and there's roughly 10 years left on it.

We've had an awful year. We've got two small DCs and I'm the main earner. This year has seen two family members (myself and one DC) dealing with life threatening illnesses and it's been a struggle to cope with everything.

We've had various agencies/bodies offer help in the form of welfare/practical stuff (hospital, school, Macmillan etc) but I realised that the biggest thing that would help us right now is a 6 month break from mortgage payments or to just pay interest only. So I went and saw my bank, explained our circumstances and they looked up my mortgage on the computer then said no (but asked if I had life insurance which was not very tasteful!)

I get that they don't have to do this; it's not an option in the mortgage terms. But at the same time it felt like such a simple thing to do for us, and it would make a massive difference (eg I could put it towards more childcare as currently having chemo while looking after two small children). Or DP could take some unpaid leave to help at home (he works away most of the time)

Is it worth asking again? Or appealing in some way? How would I do this? Has anyone managed to get a mortgage holiday whne it wasn't already in their mortgage terms?

Do you have a spare room you can rent out, it's tax free until a certain amount look at HMRC website if you are in UK. Do you have family or friends that can help with childcare?. Get well soon

Could you just get a loan and use that to pay the mortgage? Not very financially sensible but it would do the trick.

Was the life insurance question actually to ascertain if you had protection/critical illness that would pay out on a serious life limiting diagnosis?

You could ask the bank if they would extend the term, this lowering your repayments?

Could you ask to extend the term instead so that payments are lowered and more manageable ? Or do you have any critical illness cover? Could macmillan help with writing a letter of support to your mortgage company ? Macmillan have a team of finncial advisors who can help with mortgage issues - ring the main 0300 number and ask for the financial guidance team. they may be able to advocate / negotiate on your behalf. Hope things improve for you soon.

Sorry to hear you're going through a bad time. Could you pay interest only? I would have thought a 'responsible lender' has to give you options - maybe try CAB. X

Could you switch to an offset mortgage?
You can take whatever payment holidays you want and overpay at other times when things are better.
It would save you a fortune.

ask them to refer to a senior manager and remind them that the FCA requires Lenders to treat customers in financial difficulty fairly - while this doesn't necessarily mean you will get what you want it may prompt further thought / judgement

best wishes - i hope matters improve for you and your family

Definitely think about extending the term you have a decent amount of equity

One thing I would say is that if you go down the road of the FCA stating to treat customers in financial difficulties sympathetically to bear in mind that this could have an affect on your credit file, or your ability to re-mortgage.

Anything that is not in the terms of your mortgage could lead to them reporting you were in a payment arrangement or arrears and whilst it sounds as though this would really help you out I wouldn't want it to affect you long term unless it was what you wanted.

Hope you and your DC are on the road to recovery.

Make a complaint that you weren't given the payment holiday and when you have a "final response letter" you can take the issue to the financial ombudsman service who would look at whether your mortgage company have treated you fairly.

Thank you for all your very helpful replies and sorry for not posting before. Currently in hospital (chemo side effects) and it's impossible to type much as virtually no signal but will write more once home.

Sorry you're going through all this. When I asked for a mortgage holiday due to sudden dire financial problems I was advised that if I'd said I was planning a holiday or buying a new car - I'd have got it.

Just saying.

How old are small children? Ask health visitor for families in need funding for childcare for them.