# Struggling with investment property bought before marriage



## Thrifty1 (9 Apr 2014)

Good morning, our situation is that my husband bought an apartment in 2004 before we met. In 2006 we got married and bought a house together and put his apartment on the market. The apartment was on the market for about 18mths-2 years and we had 3 viewings.
We couldn't rent it at that time as he would have been liable to pay back the stamp duty. Since May 2007 we have been paying two mortgages. The apartment has been rented successfully for the last two years but the lease is ending next month.
There is a shortfall of almost €400 a month on the apartment which is being paid out of savings. We have been paying the mortgage every month for the last 7 years in the hope that we would be able to sell the apartment at some stage. I now don't think this will ever happen. The complex where the apartment is located is getting quite run down, many apts are rented and landlords are not paying the management fees. There is an underground car park which has become a hangout for the local youths drinking and generally making a nuisance of themselves. The complex has a bad reputation and I cant see anyone purchasing a unit there.

Ill set out our liabilities and income and expenditure

Mortgage on apartment with UB
Borrowed - €161,000
Left to pay - approx. €150,000 (all payments seem to be going to interest)
Term - 35 years with 25 left
No arrears
monthly repay - €781

Mortgage on house with PTSB
borrowed - €302,000
Left to pay - €247,000
Term 25 years with 18 left
no arrears
Monthly repay - €1321


Income - only my dh works, I mind our 3 children at home
€3072 per month
€550 rent from apartment

Monthly expenses - €1900

Total monthly income = €3622
Total expenses = €4002
we are €380 per month in the red.

If the situation stays as it is we will just run down all our savings until we have to go into arrears. I am concerned particularly about when interest rates rise as our repayments used to be €1700 on the house and €950 on the apartment a couple of years ago.

I have looked at the ISI website and we are considering going for some type of arrangement. We have savings but they are all in my name. There is about €35,000 in my account. This is made up of child benefit that I have been savings since the kids were born and an inheritance from my parents. I have more savings from maternity benefit and working but have run down a fair bit from paying the shortfall.

I have plans to start my own business later this year and while it is getting up and running I will need to put the kids in childcare. I wont earn money for a while so I had been saving for a few years now to cover these childcare costs.

I am just not willing to run down all the savings for the kids putting money into this when there will never be an end in sight.

We want to come to some arrangement with the bank and I am looking for advice on our options and where to go next. 
This is causing us a lot of strain and upset and my husband is willing to go bankrupt to just get rid of this noose. I was hoping maybe a PIA might be an option. I have looked at the ISI website and from what I read this would be our situation
Income - €3072
Reasonable living expenses - €1898 (2 adults, 3 kids preschool x 1 and primary x 2 and car)
left over = €1172 to pay debts
House mortgage is €1321
apartment is €781

We want to leave me and our home out of it if possible, how would that work?
How would the tenants affect the situation, I am not sure whether they will sign a new lease when this one is up?
Many thanks for any advice or info.


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## Brendan Burgess (14 Apr 2014)

A tough one. 

What is the value of the apartment? 

What is the value of your home? 




> Income - €3072
> Reasonable living expenses - €1898 (2 adults, 3 kids preschool x 1 and primary x 2 and car)
> left over = €1172 to pay debts
> House mortgage is €1321
> apartment is €781


You appear to have a cheap tracker on your home. This means that the interest charge is €400 a month, so you are paying down €900 capital a month off your mortgage. 

You claim your husband is not able to keep his family going and pay the shortfall on his investment property. But you are squirreling away the child benefit and you have savings of your own. 

I don't think he will get a sympathetic hearing from Ulster Bank. He has a loan, he should pay it. 

So what are his options? 

1) Apply for  Personal Insolvency Arrangement - Ulster Bank should and will veto it. 

2) Your husband goes bankrupt. 
His half of your home will vest in the Official Assignee.  If it's in negative equity, he will offer to sell it to you for €5,000. Not sure if ptsb will let you buy it and retain the cheap tracker. 

So you could be forced to sell to sell your family home. Half of the net proceeds will be used to pay his debts. 

You will lose your cheap tracker, so your costs of accommodation will rocket. 

3) Reschedule the loan with Ulster Bank to interest only
As it appears to be a SVR loan, they will probably allow you to switch it to interest only which will reduce the repayment to €562 per month.  So this reduces the shortfall considerably. 

4) Try to sell the property and do a deal on the shortfall. 

Unfortunately, I don't think that UB will do a deal on the shortfall before you sell the property. It appears that your husband has the income to pay the shortfall, so they will insist on it. They could also get a judgement against him and register it against your home. 

He could threaten to go bankrupt but, as an alternative, offer something towards the shortfall from your savings. 

I don't think it will wash, but you could try it.


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## Gerard123 (14 Apr 2014)

*Can’t afford second property or not prepared to afford?????*
With apologies in advance if anyone if offended by my language or indeed tone, but............

I find the situation here quite disturbing, actually outrageous and disagree strongly with Brendan’s advice to “try it”. You entered into legal agreements to take mortgages and repay them. You can afford to sort your situation out but are now seeking to jump on a ‘bandwagon’ and look for some type of arrangement. A bit of common sense and take responsibility please. 

You have €35,000 in savings which includes money received from the Irish taxpayer for Child benefit which you have saved, well done! Hundreds of thousands of Irish people are near the breadline and depend on their child benefits to scrape by. They don’t have the luxury of saving it. 

Not satisfied with being able to save your child benefit received from the tax payer you now want to renege on some of your debts that I believe you can afford to pay with a proper plan. Who do you think will ultimately pay for any arrangement or write down of your loan, yes the Taxpayer (albeit UB so the UK taxpayer)? Perhaps you should disown your child benefit received from the tax payer and then perhaps you might be on better ground to start thinking of an arrangement? 

I could well understand if you were really struggling and I have huge sympathy for the people out there who are really struggling and at risk potentially of losing their house or can’t get by day to day. You do not appear to be in this position. 

I have a question please – how come if the apartment was put on the market in 2006, at or near peak market conditions, it didn’t sell? Were you looking for a higher price, out of curiosity what price did you put on it and were there any offers? Why did you not sell it then, everything has a value, I find the reason that things (generally, not always, but usually) is that sellers wont’t accept the price. Did you buy into the property boom and think you could do better perhaps? 

Now, trying to be positive and helpful, some suggestions I would make. Every property has a value so first thing to do is establish the value of the apartment. That at least gives a benchmark and allows a starting point for further analysis/consideration. Perhaps bite the bullet and sell using your savings to (part) pay the difference and at least you will have a clean slate? Your own mortgage has 18 years to run, so could you push that out say 2 years to 20 years or even a little further to help also make a contribution to any shortfall? Appreciate its with a different bank so could be difficult if not impossible. 

I agree that the Bank is unlikely to entertain write downs given your situation nor should it. Indeed the CEO of UB said as much last week in front of a Dail committee. 

Alternatives - the rental market is strong so any prospect of increasing rent? Can you become active on the apartment complex’ management committee – to drive change and improvement? Seek to prevent easy access to the car park, perhaps through a gate with security cards or codes? Can the guards help? I suspect you will find other apartment owners have similar views and may well also seek improvements rather than allowing the complex to degenerate entirely. That is not in the interests of any of the owners. Once improved bring the apartment back to the market at hopefully a better price. 

Once again, sorry if you are offended with my reply, that was certainly not my intention. But the tax payer can’t save everyone, and should only be used sparingly for real worthy causes.


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## Brendan Burgess (14 Apr 2014)

Hi Gerard

I think the point you are missing here is that the investment property and the mortgage is in his sole name.  Thrifty is not responsible for her husband's debts. 

The fact that he has been paying everything while she has been accumulating savings, muddies the water  a bit, but only a bit. 

I try to list out all the options and the pros and cons of each. I see no problem in trying to reach a deal with UB. I don't think that they will go for it, but he can at least try.  

The guy didn't buy an investment which has gone sour. He bought a home for himself, which has gone very sour.  Of course, he should try to pay his debts in full.  But if I had three children and €35,000, I would not be using it to pay off my spouse's debts, unless the bank was writing off a certain amount of the debt.


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## advice pls (14 Apr 2014)

If you are €380 short and you're saving child benefit for three children which is €390 how are you in the red? The child benefit might be in your name but surely a bank considers it as family income. You could spend the €390 child benefit on the living expenses your husband currently pays via his salary and then he has the money to service his debt.


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## Bronte (14 Apr 2014)

I don't see how you are going to get a deal. You both are acquiring assets. And with the joint incomes can meet all monthly expenditure. Most of the payments on the home is capital. Your problem is that your husband has equity in his home, and every year that goes by it gets better. So I cannot see the UB doing a deal on the apartment. 

The same applies to the apartment in relation to capital payments. Right now most of the payment on that is interest, but it will change. 

You are worried about interest rate rises, no currently on the cards, but as your capital amounts owing are decreasing, so the increase in interest rates will have less of an effect on you compared to when the mortgages were first take out. 

A cost you have not put into your calculations is the cost of being a landlords, tax, prsi, prtb, property tax etc.

If you weren't going to invest in a business I would have suggested paying off a lump sum off your home mortgage, keeping the term, but reducing the monthly cost, thereby giving you both more breathing room.


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## Gerard123 (14 Apr 2014)

Hi Brendan

Not missing that but acknowledge your comments. In totality I see little distinction between them as individuals and as a couple at this stage, given the facts and circumstances here, and the passage of time. 

I don’t agree with the expression that the savings muddy the water in this case, I think they are central to the issue here around affordability actually, most particularly given that they are from the tax payer. If she was working and the savings were entirely from her salary after she paid a share of family costs, then I could see some rationale in questioning why she should pay his prior mortgage with her money. 

I see the child benefit as their family money, not hers in isolation. The child benefit is paid for their kids. He presumably gets additional tax credit allowances on income as a married couple, so in effect benefits from her allowances also. While not getting overly focussed on the child benefit, I think it’s very artificial to attempt to draw this distinction. The savings are in effect combined savings (excl inheritance of course). 

At some point people who get married need to be considered together. Bit disingenuous to say let’s get the child benefit for the children, let’s take the extra personal tax allowances against salary, let’s take a monthly TRS for a couple, but hey presto, don’t like the concept of shared responsibility for the mortgage and decisions made post marriage so let’s separate that out. Step too far in my mind based on the facts and circumstances here.

I do accept that he may not have started with an investment property. In my mind there are two stages. 

Stage one- he purchased the apartment and lived in it until 2006. Stage two, it evolved into an investment property scenario given their decisions post marriage and when they purchased their family home. It was post these decisions when it went ‘sour’, not when he lived in it. If they were still using the apartment post marriage as their PPR, had kids, and then tried to sell (say 2009/2010) but could not due to poor market, or negative equity, that’s a different proposition. That situation does not appear to have been the case here. They appear to have ‘decided’ to keep the apartment rather than selling and taking the market price in 2006. 

I also note the comments re stamp duty which I note the tax payer also paid for? If they didn’t want to rent were they holding the apartment expecting an increase in price? If so this was clearly an investment decision to retain it and the decision was made post marriage. They could have sold it. (Not judging, just stating it as I see it. As an aside many couples did exactly what this couple did, retained prior individual apt/house and bought one jointly. Still makes them investment properties post marriage or new house in my mind.)

The central theme of my overall argument (which this case brings out) is that the tax payer cannot help everyone and help should be on a selective and as needed basis. In fairness, this couple has considerable savings, is not currently under financial pressures hugely compared to lots of other people, etc. They would be very far down the list of people who should be provided an arrangement. There are many situations where people are in a bad way and need help and support and I would be the first to champion their cause. The system should be there to help. However, taken to an extreme people who made, unfortunate as it is, decision(s) which are now a bit costly but can navigate through with a plan, and have options, should not be provided an easy route out via tax payer funded write downs. 

This muddies the water for the genuine hardship cases, moral hazard argument, etc. Where does it all stop? We have been over burdened with tax increases, other charges visible and hidden, cuts in salaries, etc, for several years. It’s time the tax payer got a break also. Seriously, enough is enough!


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## Brendan Burgess (14 Apr 2014)

advice pls said:


> If you are €380 short and you're saving child benefit for three children which is €390 how are you in the red? The child benefit might be in your name but surely a bank considers it as family income. You could spend the €390 child benefit on the living expenses your husband currently pays via his salary and then he has the money to service his debt.



I think that this summarises it very well.


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## Thrifty1 (15 Apr 2014)

Just to reply to a number of points
Re the apt, we purchased our house from the plans mid 2006 and put the apt on the market a couple of months later, so autumn of 2006. We moved into our house in 2007, the apt remained on the market from 2006 until 2009. We had 3 viewings and no offers. The market price of the apt in 2006 was €250k, (that was what the last one made), it was put on for €225k in 2006 and this dropped to €150k over the period it was on. Had an offer been made on it DH would have bitten their hand off. We were slightly concerned that the apt hadn't sold when the house was ready but we had no idea the market was going to crash. We thought worst case scenario we would pay 2 mortgages for a few months, had we known that we would be still doing it 7 years later we would never had bought the house. So Gerard123 it was never a matter of "deciding" to keep the apt and turn down an offer.

The mortgage has been paid on time in full every month for the last 7 years since he moved out. The intention has never been to renege on the loan, had it been he would have stopped paying it years ago instead of paying off about €55,000 since then in the hope some day it might sell.

The apt complex is terrible, DH was a director 3 years ago and we have attended every AGM. Security cameras were installed, there was a security guard (cant afford him anymore as people dont pay fees), barriers were erected to charge to use the underground car park, these are now never in use as they were regularly damaged. We introduced a fob system to use the bin room and only people who paid fees in full got the fob. This was to encourage people to pay as their tenants now had nowhere to put their rubbish, it got a few extra people paying.
The guards are regularly called to the car park and called to individual apts for antisocial behaviour but it doesn't stop it. A gang of 7 men broke into the apt coming after our tenant, the CCTV was too poor to identify anyone and we had to cover the cost of the broken door.
Honestly no one in their right mind would buy an apt there. DH has a meeting with the estate agent tomorrow with a view to putting it back on the market but the estate agent doesn't sound positive about it selling.

Reading the replies I realised that we should be breaking even each month with the CB but we are not. I have just gone through our expenditure and realised I have left loads out. I haven't included any of the property taxes with the house or apt or any social costs. I forgot to add in DH college costs, he is doing a degree and that costs €1900 a year.

I do save the CB but I pay my sons optical care out of it (currently €1200 a year while waiting on his public apt) and I also pay much of their clothing and back to school costs too. My son requires certain healthcare items which cost almost €50 a month. My other son seems to have the same optical problems and the waiting list publically is 18 months so if he does have it I will have to bring him privately until then, that will be another €1200 a year.
3 years ago DH had nearly €30k in his account, this month he has €900 and the mortgage of €1321 is due to be paid tomorrow so the balance will come from my account.  His savings are gone and we are onto mine now.

I do appreciate that he took out the loan and is responsible for it and as I said if we took this lightly he would have stopped paying long ago.
My concern is that this situation will only continue for so long until all our savings are gone and what then?
My husband doesn't want our kids suffering for his bad choice. Neither of us drink or smoke, we don't go out, we have been saving for years to give our kids a good life and now every month its going to pay for his loan.
No we are not struggling to put food on the table now, but we will be in a few years and I am trying to be proactive. Most of the money I have saved is saved from my previous employment and from my inheritance and think what you like but there is no way I am giving it all to the bank for a loan that's not mine. 


Our house is about €120k in negative equity. The house next door sold a few weeks back for €120k and we owe €247k.

Our preference would be to sell the apt. The estate agent had a brief conversation with DH today and said that an apt was on the market in the complex last year for €99,000 and there was no interest. I will wait and see what he says tomorrow. If we could sell it or do a voluntary surrender and try and do a deal on the shortfall with my savings that would be great.

Income
DH wages - 3072
CB - 390
Rent - 550
TOTAL = 4012

expenditure
Mortgage house - 1321
Mortgage apt - 781
Monthly expenses - 2250
total expend - 4352

= (€340)


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## laurah5 (15 Apr 2014)

Hi thrifty,

What is Interest Only on the Apt - would your net rent cover same? Might be worth contacting UB and requesting a net rent arrangement on the apt?


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## Thrifty1 (16 Apr 2014)

My concern is that if he went interest only that it would only be a temporary solution as at some stage it would go back to full repayments and to me that is only kicking the can further down the road.


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## Brendan Burgess (16 Apr 2014)

Hi Thrifty 

Thanks for the detailed background. 

1) You have a shortfall of €340 per month. 
You have €35,000 in savings. 
That is 100 months or 8 years before you run out of cash. 

You have a very cheap tracker on your home, so over the next 8 years you will be paying off the mortgage balance very quickly.  So in a sense, you are just transferring your savings from your deposit account to your mortgage account, so your net wealth is not decreasing. 

2) Interest only is probably the best solution. It will reduce your  outgoings and things might improve. Of course, they could deteriorate as  well.  It's not that you will like being tied into this mortgage and  property forever, but it's just that the alternatives are worse. 

3) Your position will deteriorate rapidly if you sell the apartment. 
At the moment the rent almost covers the interest. 
If you sell it, you will have a shortfall of  around €50,000. The repayments on this will be around €250  a month. I don't think UB will write it off. 

You could pay the €35k off this amount and leave yourselves with a shortfall of €15k.


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## Bronte (16 Apr 2014)

Thank you for your candour Thrifty. 

Let's try and be more positive on this. She has enough money right now for 8 years. So they'll have 10 years remaining on their home mortgage, and 17 years on the apartment. So they will have a lot of equity in their home by then, and surely the apartment will be out of NE by quite a bit also. It should then be possible to sell it, right now I don't think that's a possibility.

Surely in the next few years as the kids get older the OP can get a job, that would ease the family finances.

Meanwhile inflation is also eating away at the amount owing. 

I think the fear of losing her 35K is clouding her judgement. Not seeing that most of the mortgage on the home is capital and therefore saving. 

Interest only on the apartment would help, but will the bank agree it, probably not.

Something else that will have to be looked at is every single piece of expenditure. 

And I've a feeling the apartment costs a lot more than the OP realises. It's very hard to make money as a landlord currently.

And what can they do as owners to try and get the apartment block into a functioning success story? How many apartments are there?

Is there no tax relief on the optical care?

What is the interest rate on both loans?


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## cremeegg (16 Apr 2014)

If you can rent it, you can sell it.

Rent €550 pm is €6,600 pa at 10% gives €66,000. And I don't think anything is selling as low as this at the moment. 

If you can sell for a net €66,000 that leaves €84k due to UB, you could use your savings to reduce this to €49k, or do some type of deal with UB. This may not even be the best financial outcome, as Brendan has outlined, but it gives a clean break.

Assuming you don't have significant positive equity in your home, UB would not be able to do anything in this situation. They could get a judgement mortgage, but so what? They could not force a sale of your home

Again the benefit of not having your home mortgage with the same bank as any other property.


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## 44brendan (16 Apr 2014)

This could not be regarded as a "so what" solution! Unless an acceptable agreement is made with the Bank for dealing with the arrears they will pursue this debt in Court. This will include registering a JM against his interest in the PDH and is also likely to include further proceedings to obtain an installment order. If this can be avoided by negotiation it should be. It is likely to be well worth your while employing the services of an experienced professional to deal with the bank on this issue.


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## laurah5 (16 Apr 2014)

Hi thrifty,
I think if you approach the bank and propose a net rent/io for solution they might be open to same...(do you know what io is on the property??) Really the long plan is to dispose of the property once it returns to a positive equity situation (or close enough). 

Maybe request 3-5 years (I'm unfamiliar with UB's btl strategy but I would imagine that under central bank pressures - they have such a strategy in place for blts). The alternatives are to continue subbing Btl  with your present income and eventually sell it or approach UB regarding a voluntary surrender option .... Which at this point in time may not be the most appropriate course if action given the likely residual balance)


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## Thrifty1 (17 Apr 2014)

Thank you all for your replies.
With regard to the €35,000 yes it is clouding my judgment but I also think its clouding everyone's judgment. €10,000 of it is money my parents gave me about 6 months ago. This money is to help me embark on a new career. I don't want to go into much detail about it as I am worried about identifying myself but it will mean earing little to nothing for the first couple of years and the money my parents gave me is to help pay for the childcare costs during this time. I have agonised about going down this route as it will cost us money but it has been my dream for many years and has been what I have been saving towards, and I am loathe to give up on that to pay my husband's debt.

That leaves €25,000 and for arguments sake lets say DH is entitled to half that. This money is made up of my past earnings and savings from CB and probably some maternity benefit. Therefore he has about €12,500 of the savings to pay towards the mortgage. That's is about 3 years of paying the shortfall not 8 years.

That is also assuming that our income and expenditure remain static for that period which is unlikely. Sometime in the future interest rates are going to rise. Within the next three years I will have a third child starting school and will have had 2 Communions. What if our car needs work done or a kitchen appliance needs replacing? These are all costs that are going to arise and will reduce the savings and thus reduce the period he can cover the shortfall.
The immersion pump in the apartment is constantly causing problems as it is a duplex. It goes roughly every 18 months, the cooker in the apartment is 10 years old, it may need replacing in the next 3 years. I have to worry about all these costs.

The apartment is causing us so much stress. We never wanted two properties, we never wanted to be landlords. I feel physically sick every time the tenant rings and I know its either that they are leaving early and breaking the lease of sometime is broken in the apartment. I am suffering from panic disorder from all the stress and worry over the years and watching out hard earned savings dwindling and knowing there is flip all we can do about it.
We don't care if we are financially worse off getting rid of it now because neither of us can bear to have any dealings with it anymore
Had we splashed the cash like may others in the boom time and racked up tens of thousands in personal debt we actually would be in a better position to negotiate. Because we have some savings it seems like we are worse off.

Cremeegg I am hoping that an investor would purchase it to rent it but honestly with the state of the complex I don't know if that will happen. I don't even know would the bank allow a sale at almost €100,000 less than what is owed.

44brendan - I don't see what the point would be to register a judgment mortgage as it will be many years before there is positive equity in our family home and I think the limitation period will have run out before then. As for an instalment order, our income is less than our expenditure so I don't think one would be successful. None of out expenses are extravagant. I have looked at the reasonable living expenses on the ISI website and we are well within those.

The mortgage isn't a buy to let as DH bought it as his PPR so I don't know if that will make a difference, or if it automatically converted to one when he bought a second property.

Laurah5 - what is io? There is 25 years left on the apartment, the capital has reduced by about €10,000 in 10 years so it will be a long time before it will be on positive equity, we wouldn't be able to sub the shortfall for that length of time.

Can anyone recommend a financial expert to talk to? I am not sure what to do about the tenants. The lease is up soon and I don't want to ask them to sign a new lease if we are planning on selling and getting the bank involved.


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## Brendan Burgess (17 Apr 2014)

Hi Thrifty

I still don't follow your argument. You have built up €25,000 savings between you over the past few years. You have also repaid a large amount of capital on both your mortgages. You are saving rather than overspending. 

You may want to start a business but you can't afford to.  If you can spend the time on a business you can get a job which pays you a reliable salary. 

You seem to be arguing that your husband's salary should be used to pay all your family expenses, and repay the capital on both your mortgages, while you save the child benefit and the maternity benefit. In effect, you are saying,"we can't service the mortgage on this investment because I want to save my income in a savings account".  This makes no sense to me. 

You should contact a letting agent and get them to let the apartment for you.  That will insulate you from the hassle quite a bit. 

I also think it would be cleaner if you returned the gift of €10,000 to your parents.  If you get into negotiations with the lenders , it would be better to have €25k rather than €35k sitting in your bank account. 



> Can anyone recommend a financial expert to talk to?



You might not like the answers you are getting on Askaboutmoney. However, a good debt advisor will give you the same answers and charge you a fee for it.


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## Thrifty1 (17 Apr 2014)

Hi Brendan, we haven't build up savings of €25,000, we are down to that amount. A few years ago we had much more in savings. I had a good job before I was let go. DH was on a much higher salary but has taken pay cuts. He used to get a bonus and worked about 10 hours overtime every week but that has been cut. Over the past couple of years as his pay have been reducing we have been using our savings to subsidise the costs.
I was made unemployed 6 years ago and apart from a few stints of temporary work in my husbands place of work I have not worked since then. For the past 3 years I have been looking for work but I cannot get a job as I have been out of work for so long. I have plenty of PFO's to show for it. I went back to college 2 years ago and got a level 9 qualification but I still cannot get a job as I don't have experience. I have spoken to plenty of recruitment agencies and have been advised that the best way for me to proceed is to apply for an internship for 9-12 months (ie working for free) to gain the experience. In this particular area I would have the opportunity of working for myself as a consultant or working in a company. I am willing to spend the money in the hope that with the experience I will be able to get a job in this area.
I have not even gotten an interview in the last few years and was told by a recruitment consultant that it is because I have been "out of the loop for so long".

DH used a letting agent to let the apartment and it costs one months rent for that, if they were to manage the apartment and deal with the tenants that would cost another months rent. So every year we would be losing 2 months rent. Also the letting agent would just call us for approval for any purchases/ repairs etc so really its just paying a middle man for nothing. They would have no interest in getting the cheapest quote for work because its not coming from their pocket, so I would imagine in the long run it just costs more.

Its not that I don't like the answers I am getting it is that I would like to set out the situation in full to someone in confidence, go through our expenditure and bank statements and give specific advice to help us deal with the bank.
My main concern is that we try and come to some deal now, not in a few years time when all the savings are gone and we are gone into arrears. I said earlier that I am willing to use the savings to try and negotiate a deal but I will not give all of it as some of it is solely mine and I am not liable for my husband's debt.
At the moment we are spending more than we are earning, that has not always been the case but it is now. My husband has looked for another job but none in his area of expertise pays better than what he is on now. I am hoping to go back to work and have gained another qualification while being a SAHM but it seems from having been out of work so long I will have to work for free to get back into it.
I am not being fussy about work or looking for a job above my station, I have applied for factory work at night, a part time admin job in the mornings (to name a few) and like I said I haven't even gotten an interview. I have too large a gap in my CV for employers to be interested.

Thanks again for the replies, I will get all the financial data together and make an apt with the bank.

Sorry just to reply to a question asked earlier - no you cant get tax relief on optical care. We sent back a med1 form a couple of months ago. From when our second child was born he was put on special formula that would normally cost €800 a month and we got it on the drug payment scheme. I only realised we could claim tax relief on the money we paid every month so I sent in a med 1 form, turns out DH underpaid tax by over €700 that year and it is now being deducted from DH wages, so his wages have been reduced by €15 a week for the last month


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## terrysgirl33 (17 Apr 2014)

You said your DH is in college at the moment, and you are hoping to start work soon.  Wouldn't it be worth switching to interest only on the appartment to give you breathing space to explore these options until your situation improves?


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## Thrifty1 (18 Apr 2014)

DH has another 3 years to go on his degree so it will be a while before he will be in a position to benefit financially from it, he will have to move job as he cant progress any further in the company he is in. Hopefully I will get paying work in the future but it looks like I might be facing a year of an internship and I cant start that until next Sept when 2 kids back in school so im looking at least 18 months before I might be earning.

Does anyone know off hand what an interest only payment would amount to - loan was €161,000 over 35 years SVR of 4.6%. The current full payment is €781. Brendan Burgess mentioned €562 for interest only, is that correct?
Its just that very little seems to be coming off the balance, approx. €1,000 a year.
Also roughly what period to banks agree to interest only for? are we talking merely a matter of months?
Many thanks,


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## Brendan Burgess (18 Apr 2014)

€150,000
x 4.5%
=€6,750 per year
= €562.5 per month 

*Repayment 
*€150,000 over 25 years at 4.5% = €833 

You are paying €781 so some of the figures you have provided are incorrect.


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## Thrifty1 (18 Apr 2014)

That's interesting, ill get my Dh to dig out the last statement from them as I was pretty sure those figures were correct.
Thanks Brendan


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## Thrifty1 (22 Apr 2014)

Just wanted to update, amount outstanding on mortgage is €143,000 so that's a bit of good news.
We spoke to the estate agent. A 2 bed apt in the town sold for €95,000 a couple of months ago. Unfortunately he said we would be looking at less as in his own words "many people wouldn't touch an apartment in that complex with a barge pole"!
He said as it has a bad rep, doesn't have own door access and very high management fees he would advise to put on at €80,000 but would have to negotiate down esp due to mgt fees.
We are going to try this route first.
Are the bank likely to veto any offer?
Lease is up in 2 months, what's the best way to proceed, offer a short term lease, do you offer a rent reduction in return for facilitating viewings. They have been good tenants and I don't want to mess them around but can't afford to have the place vacant while on the market.
Thanks.


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