Mortgage holiday advice

[Mikethenight2good]

Hiya,
Need some advice please.

Husband lost his job unexpectedly in July. Husband spoke to our mortgage company and explained the situation and asked for a mortgage holiday. They said they would look into it. We couldn't pay July so missed the payment. He spoke to them during August and we still haven't got a agreed mortgage holiday. We have now missed our second payment. He has been the one speaking to them and I can't get under the detail of what is needed or even can we. I have been in the office so have left it to him to speak to them. Now I feel I need to get involved as hubby finds stuff like this stresses him out and can be in self denial.

I am going to work from home Friday and see if we can talk to them together. Anyone been in this situation and has any helpful advice. I am worried about missing a third payment not within agreed terms.

Can I do anything with council tax or any other utilities to help offset the cost.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Oh dear. Have a look at:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan/

Going from job loss to being unable to pay your mortgage straight away sounds like things were pretty tight anyway with no slack in your budget at all, does that sound right?

Do you have other debts? Have you reviewed your budget to see what you can cut back on? Do you have anything you can sell?

What did your DH do and does it look like he's going to be able to find new work straight away? If his job loss was due to the pandemic, look at the specific MSE help for that. Are you entitled to any benefits? Can he retrain or at least get temporary work in another industry? There's so many shortage professions at the moment that he should be able to walk into another job, even if it's not what he used to do.

As far as the debt's concerned, you need to prioritise. Your house, council tax and food are the number 1 priority and you should keep up with these first, even if it means missing other payments or running up debts elsewhere. However, if you're in that position, rather than things just being a bit tight and you have to cut back on a few non essentials, then you might need formal debt help and a drastic solution, but it's impossible to say without a full financial picture and I suspect that there's quite a big issue at play for you to have to miss a mortgage payment straight away like that.

If he's not going to be able to get another job soon that will allow you to pay the mortgage and other essentials, would selling the house and moving somewhere cheaper be an option? However, your credit history is now affected due to missed mortgage payments, which will make things a lot more difficult .

Forgot to say, I assume that you don't have any income protection insurance that would pay out? Likewise no redundancy payout to come?

Do you not have access to any savings? Could family help out?

I’d do what you can to pay it or you seriously risk losing your home. Maybe seek advice from CAB.

I am assuming no savings or redundancy payment?

How is his job search going?

Are there other things you can cut to prioritise mortgage? Or things you can sell?

It’s harder to get a mortgage holiday once you’ve missed payments - unless the coronavirus act has changed that. That option might not be available anymore. Are you named on the mortgage? Can you talk to them to see what your options are?

Posted too soon!

I’d second the advice to look at priority debts. That’d usually be your mortgage and council fax. Things like credit cards aren’t a priority, so you can set up a payment plan for that - it’s not good for your credit file, but two missed mortgage payments will have had a pretty bad impact anyway, so don’t worry about that.

If you’ve got no other way of paying, your husband needs to find any work he can get for now. There’s a lot of hospitality work around, which would give him a quick start, but he’ll have to appear keen & valuable, and it may well be minimum wage.

This must be stressful