# Meeting with mortgage provider, arrears.  Looking for some tips please.



## Alwyn (9 Dec 2011)

As I mentioned on other threards myself and my wife were contemplating handing the keys back on our home.  We had gotten no response back from our provider about our MARP application and everything seemed to be going from bad to worse.  We heard nothing, absolutely nothing for months on end.
Well low and behold when we arrived home this afternoon there was a letter from our provider asking us both to meet with them in January to discuss our account.
Our account is in arrears and we do not forsee ourselves anytime soon being able to repay full capital and interest payments. 
Mrs. Boomtobust is slightly sketchy but I am taking this meeting as a life line to prove to the bank that we are not looking for some easy way out but want to sort out the mess we are in.
Any tips about meeting the provider would be more than helpful please.


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## Wishes (11 Dec 2011)

Don't sign anything at the meeting.  Go home and consider your options.

As Eddie Hobbs said on RTE last night 200,000 people are insolvent in this country.  The banks would have you believe at these meetings that you were the only one.

Good luck.


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## corkgirl1 (11 Dec 2011)

Hi Boomtobust,

As you know from other threads I am in a similar position.

I would recommend that before the meeting you go through all of your income and outgoings in detail and have a folder with you with all of your numbers in it (don't necessarily show him this folder). Look up SFS online and that will give you all the headings you need to look at (petrol, food, insurance, etc) and try to have your finances broken down into those categories and into monthly amounts. Try to make sure you don't forget any annual expenses - maybe look back over a year's bank statements.

You say you don't see an improvement in your personal circumstances soon, but the bank manager will want to be able to put down that there could be an improvement further down the line (maybe one of you will have better prospects in a couple of years). He should be impressed if you can tell him you are retraining or something to improve your prospects.

From our meeting, they are happier to try and get some MARP arrangement together if they think you are intending to try and stay put longterm - if you suggest that Australia is on the cards in the near future they will want to move you sooner rather than later whereas if you can say you are closer to getting a job then they will try to work with you.

Also, ring MABS before the meeting to ensure that you are claiming everything you should be and not overspending in some area - our bank manager said they have to tell everyone to call MABS but in our case there was no fat to cut.

HTH


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## Alwyn (12 Dec 2011)

Thank you both for your posts.

From what we believe they will have their solicitor sit in on the conversation.  It's laughable to think that we cannot find a solicitor to take on our case yet the bank will have full legal representation when we finally get to speak with them.

We sent in our SFS months and months ago but they want to discuss it more with us only now so they can find more cuts to our expenditure.  We are living on the breadline as it is. 

I called the bank after I received the letter and they said the aim of their meeting was to have us back paying nomal payments.

We honestly believed that repossession would be the first thing on their mind.  ~confused~


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## aaa1 (12 Dec 2011)

It's not in their interests to repossess your house. If they do that they're left with an asset that is worth very little, and the loan is still outstanding. What the ideally want is for you to repay your mortgage in the long term. They may try to bully you but ultimately you have the upper hand - they want the money repaid and you are the only ones who can do that. It will take longer than they want because of your current financial situation but if they believe the money will be repaid in the end they will be (relatively) happy


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## Alwyn (12 Dec 2011)

Thanks aaa1.  They are refusing to capatilize the arrears.  They are also refusing to stretch the mortgage out over a longer period.  I suppose we are going to have to be a bit more firm with them.  They have sat on our SFS for months and we have heard they are only looking at it in January.  Arrears owed 18k


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## corkgirl1 (14 Dec 2011)

+1 to everything aaa1 has said.


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## Quest (14 Dec 2011)

They are probably refusing to capitalize the arrears until you can prove that at least the interest payments can and will be made. 
They will want to see that the mortgage is being prioritised and that just means that you have made the necessary lifestyle cuts in expenditure, and that unsecured short term debt is also being re-negotiated where possible. As long as you are make payments in line with what is deemed affordable (whatever level of repayment that may be) there is little or no chance of repossession. 
A term extension is pointless unless you are currently paying over and above the Interest Only amount each month,  as a term extension only impacts the capital repayment.


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