Stressed and worried about finances and maternity leave

[DW1978]

It just feels like the world is against us at the moment.

We had to get the breaks fixed on the car last week which has cost us £311. Then, at the weekend, something has happened to the engine so it's back at the garage again now. We have no money to pay yet another huge bill but we need the car and are supposed to be taking it away to France in two weeks. The car is over 9 years old now and over the last couple of years it has just been one thing after another.

We went to see a financial advisor a few weeks ago about re-mortgaging our house to borrow some extra finance. We bought a really run down house about 18 months ago and over the following year, totally gutted the inside and renovated it all so now we are thinking it will be worth about £70K more than we paid for it (not had an official valuation yet). We would like to borrow to consolidate two loans, our overdrafts, money to buy a new car and money to sort the gardens out (at the moment they are totally weed ridden, we want to fence right round, get decking etc). When we spoke to the finanacial advisor, he worked through all our finanaces, looked at our current outstanding debt/mortgage etc, what we think the house is worth and told us that what we want to do would be totally feasible, he can't see any reason why we wouldn't be able to do it.

We applied to our current lender, they turned us down. We appealled, they turned us down again.

We looked at our credit rating and we have the highest possible points we could have and have been classed as very low risk borrows. We have proven that the new payments will actually be less than we are paying now so we can obvisouly afford it.

I'm panicking now as we are currently with the Co-op who do payment breaks, which is what we were planning to do when I'm off work as I don't get maternity pay. So, if we try another lender a) we will have to pay about £4K in fees and b) we wont be able to take payment breaks.

I'm so worried and stressed about what we are going to do when I'm off work. DH can't afford the mortgage and bills by himself, I wont have any money coming in, what little money we do have is being spent on our money pit of a car which keeps breaking down and we have no money saved.

Sorry, I know theres nothing anyone can do to help but I just needed to get it off my chest.

 

[Mummy2Adam]

Im so sorry your going through all this hunny
If you went to another lender and added the 4k onto what your borrowing (if you can) would your payments still be lower? If so having no payment breaks seems a small price to pay (if you werent planning on using the payment holidays to cover your mat leave) x x

 

[DW1978]

We can't afford our mortgage while I'm off though hun without payment breaks as our mortgage is already £1104 a month and DH just can't afford that and all our bills on top by himself. I wont be getting any money from work at all as we don't get maternity pay - not law in Guernsey.

Mmmm, might be an idea adding extra on to what we want to borrow, might be an idea. We're meeting the financial advisor again on Thursday so will ask him what he thinks xxx

 

[Mummy2Adam]

Hope you get it sorted hunny, let us know how you get on on Thursday x x

 

[DW1978]

Thank you.

I'm just wondering if we'll be better off staying with the Co-op for now, take the payment breaks while I'm off and then re-applying for a new mortgage in April 2012 when I'm back to work. Just means we wont be able to use the garden this summer and we will need to keep repairing the old car for now too.

Will let you know what the FA thinks xxx

 

[Princess81]

that sucks. House prices in Guernsey have still be rising nicely haven't they throughout this whole recession, so I'd say that the value has gone up by a good lot.
When I lived there I had my mortgage with the states and then a top up after that,dumo if they still do that or not?
Can you borrow from banks not based in Guernsey? ie: Halifax? We used to be with them and the let us take a payment break. Alliance & Leicester are also good x

 

[DW1978]

Yes, we can borrow from anyone I think. We have had our mortgage with the Bank of Scotland before and are now with the Co-op who we have to deal with in the UK. It's annoying though as the UK banks don't understand the price of things in Guernsey and the house prices etc. When I first phoned up they turned me down point blank saying they can only lend 3.75 times both wages but in actual fact, in Guernsey they will lend 5 times both wages!! Also, as you so rightly say, the recession didn't hit Guernsey like the UK so there is very little or no risk factor in properties going into negetive equity - Guernsey house prices ALWAYS rise, no matter what!

I'm not sure if you can still get the States loans hun but they were only for first time buyers anyway.

Thanks for the recommendations xxx

 

[Sarah13]

Sorry no real advice, must be such a worry though for you. I didn't realise things were so different in guernsey and assumed you got the same kind of help and maternity pay as uk. Can you apply for loans else where and consolidate everything exept morgage? I know when we changed our morgage recently we could only get 75% of total house value so a lot of companies are reluctant to lend what ever your circumstances, our credit rating and income is good as well, they just won't take the risks now.

 

[DW1978]

Yeah, unfortunately we have our own laws for loads of things over here and maternity pay is one of them!! They are concidering making it law but it will be too late for me. Boo!! We do get a little bit of help from the States - £130 per week for 18 weeks which, don't get me wrong, is great but when our mortgage and utilities bills are around £1850 per month now, that wont really go far. Plus, if I decided to take on a part time job in the evenings to help out, they would stop that pay - they only do it while you're not earning a wage.

I don't really want to get a loan as that would be yet another payment on top of what we're paying now where as re-mortgaging would have kept everything together. Plus, we want to borrow about £40K and I dread to think what the repayments on a loan that big would be!!

 

[Sarah13]

Scotland has different laws etc too some seem better though up here (no student fees!). Guess 40k is a lot to put on a loan! Hopefully the financial advisor will come up with some options for you so you can muddle through till your working again. Its all the unexpected things that make life hard like the car going wrong!

 

[star fish]

Oh hun! Is the house a total nightmare to live in?

 

[littlemiss83]

Sorry to hear about about this, you must be really stressed. I dont have much advice about mortgages/loans ect as i've no experience with them, however I was thinking about the garden situation, could you not hire a local gardener or odd job man to come round and do your weeds/grass and a general tidy so it would be at least suitable to sit in. Even if it meant paying for the guys full days wage i'm sure it would be worth it.

How long are you taking off for maternity leave? Are you entitled to any smp or anything? (sorry if u mentioned that already, I didn't get a chance to read the whole thread)

 

[Princess81]

^^^^ In Guernsey it's near on impossible to find an odd job man, well it was when I got there, plus they all charge a clean fortune price you pay for living in such a nice place I guess.

I don't know why they assess on multiples of earnings. Surely the affordability and equity is plain to see? fgs it's a pain!! I had no idea that they didn't pay maternity

 

[DW1978]

Sarah13 - Tell me about it! This car has been a dream up until the last 18 months. Hardly anything had gone wrong on it before but now it seems constantly to be one thing after another. Thats why we were hoping we'd be able to include a new car in the re-mortgage as it just seems to be an endless money pit recently.

star fish - No, luckily, the inside of the house is totally finished. We borrowed enough the first time to be able to do all the renovations and we have totally gutted the inside right back to the shell and re-built it all. It's just the gardens that need doing. Its an ex-States property (same as you council houses) so the gardens have absolutely no privacy - all wire fencing around, no gates up, the 'lawns' are all weeds and stinging nettles and building rubble etc so its just not people friendly - we can't sit in it and Lennon can't play in it. Plus, we lived in a flat before so have NO gardening stuff and would need to buy everything from scratch - lawn mower, tools, shed, weed-killer, grass seed, table and chairs, fencing, decking etc. It all adds up and we can't afford it ourselves. BUT, I have to remember it is only a luxury and not a necessity to get it done this year. It would just be so nice too!.

littlemiss - We do get a little bit of help from the States - £130 per week for 18 weeks which, don't get me wrong, is great but when our mortgage and utilities bills are around £1850 per month now, that wont really go far. Plus, if I decided to take on a part time job in the evenings to help out, they would stop that pay - they only do it while you're not earning a wage. I'm hoping to take 5 months off from the birth of the baby as I did with Lennon.

Princess - the silly thing is that our multiple earnings are far higher than the total we want to borrow anyway. Going on what the house is worth, the current outstanding mortgage etc etc, even with an extra £40K, we would still only be up to an 80% mortgage and still well within our means.