are we effed trying to remortgage?

[Matchingcollarandcuffs]

We desperately need to remortgage as currently need to do a loft extension as boy/girl teens share a room.

We want toremortgage to 68% LTV, it's still under 3 x joint salary.

We want to use some of the money to pay off credit cards.

Issue is they're all maxed out, and they want statements for all off them.

Whilst it looks bad on paper paying our debts off would free up more than £1.8k a month, with new mortgage figure that's still more than £1k more disposable income after mortgage and essentials paid. We'd have over £2k 'spare'

We're stuffed aren't we? Need to spend next 6 or so months living way under or means and start paying some credit off. .

Having debt doesn’t mean you won’t be able to re-mortgage. They look at your credit file to see how you manage those debts, if you are paying each month and no missed payments that’s great.
100% speak to a broker - cannot recommend that enough. They know which lenders are suitable for your personal situation and a good broker will advise what the best thing to do would be. You may be able to consolidate your debt within the mortgage and still borrow what you need to do renovations. We did a debt consolidation through the mortgage and it was the best thing we did - the pressure it took off us too!

your children need separate rooms at those ages, but you have known about them getting older and this problem for years, and still prioritised holidays and other things over it, so another 6 months won’t hurt them

This. Lots of people overspend because they convince themselves that the thing they want (holiday, car etc.) is urgent and essential and important and they can't live unless they have it NOW. The extension is just one more thing in that category - if it was that important it would have been saved for a long time ago. Once the extension is done, there will be something else that is super important and essential and expensive that you'll put on credit.

Break the credit habit before you consider taking on any additional debt. Be really ruthless with yourself about what you can cut out to make the savings you need.

Could possibly but only access to garden would be via the bedroom. Also, would have to cost ££££ (that we don't have) as we're on the London/Gatwick/Brighton mainline and a garden office could only go within 5m of the track

I think we're going to submit the sonication to our broker, expect to be knocked back and take their advice on the best way to make things better. And accept that were spending every spare penny paying debts down.

Am just so so fed up of carrying other people

Your husband didn't go on the holidays/buy the cars on his own though, did he?

Or did he?

Breaking the credit habit requires a mindset change, and is hard work. From the sounds of it, you must have c. £100k credit card debt - that is going to be a big habit to change, and not easy.

You need to stop blaming your dh , you are just as financially illiterate as he is. You are in significant debt , wasted thousands in non essentials abs want to borrow more. And you think you are living below your means?
Give the dc your room and buy a sofa bed. Then stop spending , sort your debts out and face reality.

Need to spend next 6 or so months living way under or means and start paying some credit off...

This statement alone demonstrates the mindset I'm talking about, which is why so many posters have picked up on it. If you are paying debt off, you are not 'living under your means'.

Also, 'living under your means' should be a permanent state of affairs - because it means that you have some contingency in your budget and are not likely to rack up debt.

"Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 19 pounds 19 shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 20 pounds ought and six, result misery."

Dining room becomes yours & DH’s bedroom - so access to garden office isn’t tramping through DC’s rooms - and yes, it will cost but much less than the loft.

I’m not saying you should do this, by any means. But I think you are perhaps (understandably) a bit fixed on the idea that the only one thing to solve this situation is the lift extension and debt consolidation remortgage- but you’re significantly extending your commitment to the mortgage when you’ve got an uncertain work future and your DC are fairly old now in terms of needing your long-term housing assistance. You’d actually be better off priorities a medium-term plan for space that preserves your equity and pays down your debt, in case the worst happens and you can’t work. Then you’d have better options like downsizing when DC have left home etc.

I think we could try to be kinder.

A sofa bed for the parents is unlikely to improve things as OP has ongoing and potentially worsening health issues.

Tough love is one thing, no need to stick the boot in.

Speak to a specialist broker. I remortgaged a couple of years ago just to consolidate. I know you pay more in the long term, but it was necessary and well doable. I just ended up with a mortgage with a specialist lender rather than a high street bank. Can recommend the broker, if you want to PM me? I found her really helpful and easy to talk to. It was all done by phone and email, too.

A sofa bed for the parents is unlikely to improve things as OP has ongoing and potentially worsening health issues.

Taking on additional debt when you have ongoing and worsening health issues is a terrible idea though.

The OP needs a solution that doesn't involve spending £££ that she doesn't have on an extension, so all possibilities need to be considered.

Temporary partitions to create two small bedrooms out of one larger one would give the children privacy, and would be cheap. No it's not ideal, but the OP can't afford the ideal so some flexible thinking is needed.

You need to start living within your means and budget. In order to pay off more than the interest you need to increase your payments and reduce your spending further.
Can you transfer any of the balances to 0% interest cards to accelerate the payback.
Once you have your debt and spending under control ( or evidence of it) then perhaps you could apply for a mortgage.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lender would be difficult to find since presently you are spending more than you earn. Remortgaging will help to pay off your debts but until you tackle the overspending then the cycle will repeat itself very quickly.
Building costs are rising and fitting out of the extension will not be covered by the loan as they are tangible assets the bank won't secure against.

I’ve been suggesting those things, Octo and pointing out extra borrowing is a bad idea. I was just saying that the tone of ‘suck it up you awful spendthrift’ along with an unworkable suggestion for someone with a chronic health condition isn’t actually truly helpful.

Didn't bother me, it is our fault. And I am far more literate than him hence is owning a home.

And I know that you're all saying but our mortgage would only be about £1400 a month, we're currently paying £900 so it's really not too much of a stretch. We could then overpay significantly to reduce longer term interest.

We do have short term plans too, and longer term we want to move away from London once kids are done schooling which will help reduce costs too.

We have had a horrendous 5 or so years, really really awful, and took our eyes off the ball. Now it's biting us back. But all our own choices.

Ok that’s slightly different all your other posts read like it was totally your husbands fault you had so much credit card debt and only you were responsible for paying it back

you obviously don’t want to say how much it is, and credit card debt doesn’t stop you getting a mortgage but this appears it might be on a whole other level in terms of living above your means and now the cards are maxed out this is the only option to free up more money.

I know you say your husband is financially Iliterate but you must have had sone part of this?

I would still shelve the extension plans @Matchingcollarandcuffs, and shorten your mortgage term by still having a payment of £1.4k.

How many years will that extension require you to work for it? And how much of that time will you be healthy? In very few years time, you won't need the extra bedroom space, and building costs are very high right now.

I thought our payments were bad when we paid 600 a month for debt

its still not impossible but banks/lenders dont like to see a lot of cc debt they think you'll just start spending again once its cleared

Yes, we will still have a healthy contingency, we will do it in stages, firstly the loft and then replace the kitchen if there's enough.

I'd actually missed this - you were hoping to replace your kitchen too?! Rather than keeping any spare funds as a rainy day pot to keep CCs at bay in future, or paying it back into your mortgage as an overpayment?

Honestly - please do not take on any additional debt until you have worked on your mindset. You do not need to spend every single penny you have available to you.

Your numbers just don’t stack up,

you currently pay 1800 a month min pay for credit card debt.
you pay 900 mortgage,
you want to increase your mortgage by 500
which gives you a total of 1400 a month. v a current expenditures of 2700
but you’d pay off the 1800, which means you’d be 1300 a month better off.

but a 500 increase is only about 80 k mortgage, if over 25 years. Your credit card debt must be already at that level or more?

a proper loft conversion is going to cost in excess of 30k and a new kitchen likely in the region of 10..

a five hundred a month mortgage increase doesn’t seem to allow enough money to cover all the things you want it to?

I'll play with some sums. Extra rooms and bathroom (we cities get 2 beds and a bath in lift) would at value.

By being illiterate I mean I've been asking DH for years to at least transfer to 0% cards, warning that this will happen. Yet he spends. And doesn't get why we may now be stuffed.

And when the bank account is empty doesn't question how did etc then appears

I was going by the figures from the broker. Just looking it's not stacking up either . . .

Debt is about 10k (plus second mortgage of about 9k we had to take out shortly after moving when rays chewed through electrics plus entire boiler/heating system condemned the week I gave birth

Sorry debt is about £50k

I've done it, with an awful credit rating but my broker was expensive. However they did work miracles for me!

You can do it sometimes. They make you sign a declaration to pay of the debt- or may even pay it directly.

a proper loft conversion is going to cost in excess of 30k and a new kitchen likely in the region of 10..

In London, our loft conversion (standard, nothing special) cost closer to £75k and that was a few years ago, before building costs recently rocketed.

I agree in principle it should stack up better, but the way you're already mentally spending the money you'll 'save' suggests you'll soon get into CC debt again. Why bring the kitchen into it if the real need is the extra bedroom and then keeping within your limits? Especially as your longer term plan is to move.