looking for advice on mortgage

Hi

I just need some advice. we bought our house in 2005 and im not quite sure but i think we might be in negative equity.

We had to renegotiate our mortgage in September of last year and just happened to get caught with a high fixed interest rate of 5.36% on a €282000 mortgage so our repayments are €1633.33 per month now. When we bought the house in 2005 it was for our private use but in 2007 i was offered an oppurtunity through work to move to London on whats called a posting for a minimum of 3 years. Obviously we had to try and rent out our house whilst in London so were no longer entitled to TRS.

Since January i have lost nearly €15,000 from my salary due to income levy, pension levy and cut in allowances that, i was supposed to be getting whilst in London. These allowances were our incentive to move here for a few years and were subject to review whilst here but we never though that we would lose so much.

Anyway my query is as follows; while my job is relatively secure my husband has a temporary position where he can be let go at a weeks notice. We have had to drop the rent on our house from €1200 a mth to €1100 and pay agents fees which cost around €164 a month, so from the outset the rent never covered the full mortgage payments but we only wanted to keep the house occupied until we returned next year and didnt want to charge high rent anyway we wouldnt have gotten any more than that at the time or now. Anyway we were worried that we could end up defaulting on our mortgage as we have quite a high personal loan as well so contacted our mortgage bank FA to see if we could get a repayment holiday to try and get us back on an even footing. we have never defaulted on a payment or been late. They refused our request saying that we had to be a hardship case before they will consider this and as we were both working this was not the case at the moment. I then asked if they would consider giving us an interest only option for a time but they also said no for the same reasons.

Correct me if im wrong but i thought that it was a good idea to address the situation before it became a problem i.e. defaulting on payment. We are in the fixed rate until September 2011 but i'm afraid that we are going to default. I have been told that my salary will be cut again in September and all the new tax rates etc have yet to kick in. Basically i'm looking for advice on what to do next? Any advice would be appreciated.

It is not true that you have to be a hardship case to get an interest only loan. Did you deal with a particular branch or broker when you obtained the mortgage or renegotiated it? I would strongly suggest that you contact them, make an appointment to meet a real person in a branch and tell them your story. Explain that you can cover interest only, that it will only be for the balance of three years while you are in London or until your salary increases or your husbands and make a case for yourself. Ideally if they agree to interest only, you should also open a savings a/c and put what you can afford to in there and pay it off in lump sums off the capital once yearly once you have the ability. When you move back you can then resume capital and interest repayments.

While you do not have to be a hardship case exactly to get interest only or payment break with it certainly makes it easier. These options are now being rationed due to the number of requests and are mainly being reserved for customers who have lost their jobs or have severe reduction in income. Makes it even harder if you are not living in the house.

Thanks for your help on this.

i did speak to a particular bank and i think i may have spoken to the same person perviously when they messed payments on my account and life assurance so im not sure if he was still ''sore'' over this as i had to cause a fuss to have it sorted.

I was thinking of speaking to their redemption area as this is what i had to do the last time to sort out the problem, even though i'd rather not have to resolve to that again.

Thank you anyway for your advice it is appreciated

Looking for advice again with relation to my mortgage.

I was originally on asking for advice when my bank refused to give me a payment break or interest only mortgage as i was stuck on a 5.36% fixed rate.

Recently i have discovered the monthly repayment amounts we were making are over €300 a month more than what we had agreed to on our original signed agreement. I dont know why i hadnt noticed it sooner but basically i tried to contact them at the start of May and have only gotten a phone call from them today.

When i rang initally they tried to fob me off saying that it was because the interest rates fluctuated per month, whilst this may be true i said that as i was on a fixed rate the amounts should never have fluctuated this much. I even asked for the person who had sent out the agreement but wasnt allowed to speak them either. Then of course i was told to write in a letter with a copy of the original agreement. I did this of course but received no answer, so i rang back again on Monday of this week and still they tried to fob me off with the excuse of the interest been calculated per day and that this could lead to the fluctuation. I insisted again that it couldnt have fluctuated this much as we were on a fixed rate. Again i was told to send in a letter with a copy of the agreement which i did again.

Today i have received a call from the person who sent out the original agreement apologising that they had made a mistake and what they sent out was in fact an agreement for an interest only mortgage as he said that we had been on one at the time we were renegotiating our rates. I told him this was incorrect we had been on an interest only mortgage for 2 months in 2008 which they had made a mistake with as well and were in fact on a fixed mortgage on the time of renegotiating. He checked his records and said that yet again that i was correct and he apologised again. He said then would we prefer to be on an interest only at the moment i said yes of course but that we had asked for this recently and were refused but now because they had made a mistake they were suddenly able to offer this. He then said that he wouldnt actually be able to offer it and would need to check it out and get back to me.

He subsequently rang me back after about 15 minutes (its amazing how quickly they can get back to you when they want) and said that they're finance department said yet again that now they couldnt offer me an interest only mortgage even though they had made a mistake. He said that the only option i had then was to make a complaint to their customer care team. I said i had done this already at the start of the month and no one had responded he said that he had pulled my letters and would send them on. I asked him how it was that they could charge me more per month than what i had agreed to but he didnt seem to be able to answer this. He said that yes they had made a mistake but they had continued to charge me the higher amount per month even without notifying me. I questioned how it was that they were able to take more money out of my account than what i had agreed to he couldnt answer this either. He just babbled how the rates can flucuate about 1% per month basically i dont think he knew what he was going on about. He was very condescending to be honest.

Can anyone explain to me how they can charge me over €300 per month more than what we had agreed to is this not illegal. Ok i know the figures he sent out to me were for interest only and they made a mistake but i still dont understand how they can presume to change the amounts they charge to my bank account without my permission or signature. Would anyone have some advice do i not have some recourse on this? Surely out of good will they should have let me have the interest only option? By the way in never stated anywhere on the agreement that it was for an interest only mortgage, have they not broken their terms and conditions?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cant help with the reasons why your payments fluctuated but the direct debit you would have signed initially is a permission for them to debit variable amounts from your account so that is why the payments would have gone through. Direct debits are normally like that which sometimes is a good thing cos you dont have to keep setting up new ones when rates change or for example ESB bills which are always variable.

Put your entire complaint in writing to them. Tell them in the end that if you're not happy with the outcome you'll be passing the matter to the Fincial Services Ombudsman. Wait no more than a month for a reply. Contact the Ombudsman.

wbbs said:

Cant help with the reasons why your payments fluctuated but the direct debit you would have signed initially is a permission for them to debit variable amounts from your account so that is why the payments would have gone through. Direct debits are normally like that which sometimes is a good thing cos you dont have to keep setting up new ones when rates change or for example ESB bills which are always variable.

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I may be wrong here but i thought if you signed a fixed rate mortgage that the amounts shouldnt fluctuate thats why you choose a fixed rate mortgage and why its so hard to break one if you wish to do so.

Thanks anyway

Hi

Thank you for this advice. I have spoken to a friend of mine who works in a bank and he has advised the same thing, so out with the pen and paper!

One last thing, register the letter. For the sake of a few bob its worth doing as letters appear nowadays to 'not be received' by banks.

Yes thats right, the amount on the fixed rate repayments shouldnt change, I was explaining to OP how the bank had authority to take what OP considered wrong amount based on a direct debit authority.