Mr and Mrs G  bought their family home some years ago, when the kids were just primary age. The area was great and the house was close to a good school. The children grew up and moved on, leaving Mr and Mrs G to enjoy their house and garden, spend a bit more time with their friends and neighbours, and with a bit more space to themselves. They converted one of the kids’ rooms to an office and Mrs G has put her cross-walker in the other one.

However, there were now two problems:

  1. There was still a mortgage on the property, but recent  tightening of lending criteria had made it impossible to remortgage to a new deal. Their current mortgage deal ended some months ago and had now reverted to a high “standard variable rate” so the monthly payment had more than doubled. Their mortgage company will not change them to a new deal without applying the new lending criteria, which Mr and Mrs G can’t pass.
  2. Like many of this generation, Mr and Mrs G had an “interest-only” mortgage. They always planned to downsize when the time came, but it was too soon. They really enjoyed where they are living and didn’t want to have to go.  They are still in their mid-50s, have lots of friends nearby and with the kids off their hands, have more  time to do some of the things to the house that they always meant to – Mr G has created a water feature and is landscaping the garden and they have installed a nice new ensuite. They might want to downsize when they are “old” but right now they would really like to enjoy their home – the fruits of their labours after 25 years of being flat-out working parents.

Although the mortgage isn’t huge, they don’t see  how they can pay it off in the nine years they have left on the mortgage. And the new monthly payments are a burden – they can do it, but it leaves nothing for the city breaks and occasional dinner out that they had promised themselves.   The worry was mounting –  they couldn’t see a way around the problems and the thought of having to sell up was hanging like a thunder cloud over their heads.  Like lots of people, they contacted us at Getmovingtoday with the words”…you probably can’t help but…”

The solution involved selling a bit of their land, which was fine as it still left more than half their garden.  In fact it was perfect, as the vegetable plot at the end had got overgrown and a bit much to deal with – the G’s had lost interest in veg but were planning on making a beautiful garden nearer the house where the trampoline and goal posts had been before.

We also worked with a neighbour, who was over the moon at having the opportunity to release some cash too. It involved quite a bit of legal work, and it was a bit more complex with several parties involved, but the end result was that both Mr and Mrs G and their next-door neighbours received a five figure sum.

Mr and Mrs G decided to use most of the money towards their mortgage. This meant they were able to satisfy affordability criteria on the now-smaller mortgage. There are some terrific rates around right now and they decided to go for a repayment mortgage over nine years. This meant that for less than the previous payment, they will be mortgage-free before Mr G’s retirement date and they can look forward to the future without worrying about what will happen to them when they can’t work any more. They are  hugely relieved to have a secure future. And there was even still a bit left to upgrade their car.