We've been trying to sell our old flat for some months now, but flats are having a tough time selling in our area. We've reduced the price so it's now priced very keenly, but realistically are still looking at some months until a sale goes through, especially now we're going into August.
I'm quite newly self-employed having not worked for a while, and DH has become too ill to work. We've been living off a combination of my earnings and savings, but savings have dwindled to the point we need to get some finance to tide us over until the flat sells.
Despite having a lot of equity in the flat, which is mortgage free, we're coming up against so many roadblocks to getting a loan, because we can't show income - my earnings are lower than outgoings and are from self-employment.
What can we do? We can't get an unsecured or secured loan because of low income. Ditto a mortgage.
Options seem to be either a bridging loan - but these are very expensive and most seem to still want to see proof of income and have an end date that makes me uncomfortable. Or equity release - as DH is 60. Some lenders seem to still want to see income though, even though the LTV would be around 90% and I thought the whole point of these loans was for people to supplement income!
Hopefully the loan would only be for a few months and then we'd pay it off as soon as the sale went through, so either option would work out expensive in charges, but we'd be willing to swallow that to tide us over now. I'm looking for employed work too, but this could take time and still not pay enough to cover all expenses.
It's such a headache. Seems absolute madness we have all this money tied up but can't access it because of numerous hoops and obstacles.
Any ideas?