Should mortgage have been granted up to age 70 years

Flora

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I am new to this forum - find it very informative so I am hoping for advice on the following.
My husband and I have an outstanding mortgage of over 100k- and which is due to be paid off in 3 years time.
It was initally granted in 2006 based mainly on my husbands income and a much lesser income of mine. It was granted up to age 70 (my husband 70th birthday)
My husband was off sick for some time and unable to keep up repayments, however, bank has been agreeable to accept interest only payments. This agreement will cease in January 2014 and will no longer be extended by bank. Bear in mind this mortgage was granted knowing that my husband would be retiring at aged 65 and for the remaining years would not have the same income for the repay mortgage.
Should this mortgage have been granted up to that age in the first place with the bank being aware that that our income from age 65 onwards would be much less. Neither of us are working and we are living on a contributory pension and a small private pension, and finding it difficult to make repayments. Is there anything we can do to make the bank lessen the repayments. Thanks
 
Should you have taken it out if that is the case? I don't want to be negative but people need to start taking personal responsibility for their loans. The government are now changing the age at which people can get the pension, there is no law against people working once they are over 65. Having said that I understand it is difficult and maybe you can renegotiate it for smaller payments over a longer time?
 
Thank you for that Partnership, I do realise it was our own decision to accept mortgage in the first place, but, we are not much different from hundreds of others who obtained mortgages without the banks making sure they had the ability to pay in the first place. My question really was - should the bank have granted the loan in the first place. thank you for your reply and yes we are committed to keeping up repaymentsb but, for how much longer will they bank accept repayments...........up toe 80 years of age and we all know what the job situation is at the mo......difficult for the younger man and most certainly more difficult for someone over 65 years.
 
Ulster Bank were taken to court by a customer who was declined a loan due to age reasons and the customer won the case.

How did you think you were going to pay it when your husband retired? What was the bank told the financial position was going to be re his pension at that time? Many mortgages were granted up to age 70 based on the last 5 yrs being paid from pension income, all depends on what the pension expected was. Also a lot of the loans to age 70 were intended to be reduced substantially or even cleared by lump sum payments on retirement as well so unless we know the full details the bank used when underwriting the loan it is hard to comment.
 
Wbbs Very interesting about Ulster Bank.


there are so many things we do not know about or are sometimes mis- informed about, for instance my husband had thought he had income protection in place whereby he would get 75% of his income if he was even off sick, however, when he went sick for a considerable time and made his claim he unfortunately found out that due to the nature of his illness he was not entitled to this. He did get his contributions back thankfully............. so READ THE SMALL PRINT ......a dear lesson we learned.
Are the underwriters obliged to give me the info. you mentioned re. granting the loan.
Thanks v.m. for your reply - its been helpful
 
Have you asked for a copy of the mortgage application form, this should show what income information you both gave the bank at the time. I am presuming the mortgage is in joint names so you were involved in the application, what income information did you provide the the bank, you must have expected to be able to pay it back from something, why else would you have taken a loan until that age?

The Ulster Bank case was the opposite to yours in case I didn't explain correctly, the customer was declined a loan based on being too old and won a discrimination case.
 
I am with partnership on this. You knew what you were doing when you took out the loan. It was your decision and you must take responsibility for it.

Having said that, if you provide the current figures, you might get a solution to the present situation.

What is the value of the house?
What is the interest rate?
What is your husband's income?
What is your income?
Do you have other assets?

Brendan
 
Yes we did expect to be able to pay it back but because my husband was off sick for so long it left us behind with repayments and like so many more our financial circumstances changed for the worst since taking out the mortgage.
I will get in touch with bank to get a copy as you suggested.
 
That was very unfortunate for you and yes many people are in that predicament but this is hardly the fault of the bank that your husband got sick. There is no such thing as a good loan only a good risk and obviously at the time you were a good risk, unfortunately things have not worked out.

Best to try and negotiate with the bank to see if there are any options at this stage, the term will simply have to be longer if necessary.
 
Yes Cashier there were personal circumstances that necessitated the loan in the first place we had been almost debt free up till then. Life does throw up unwanted circumstances and this was one unfortunately.

thanks for your sympathy abd Ill try the money make over section.
 
Brendan,
The bank have all that info. in a financial statement we sent to them. We are paying back as much as we can afford every month and have increased our repayments by 100 euros more each month but we are hoping that if we continue to do this and pay what we can, can the bank force us to sell or repossess our home