Please contact us on 0330 058 3322 between 9 am and 5.30 pm, Monday to Friday
Payment Difficulties
If you are experiencing difficulties in making your payments, or you are concerned that you may have difficulty in the near future, there are a number of ways in which we can try to help you.
What we will do:
- Contact you as soon as possible to discuss your mortgage account
- Treat you fairly and listen to your individual circumstances
- Give you reasonable time to pay back the debt
- Ensure that everything possible is done to help you keep your property
How we can help you:
- We will work with you to establish what is affordable through assessing your current circumstances
- If appropriate, we will try to arrange a new payment plan with you and periodically review this to reflect your current circumstances
- In some cases, we may agree to allow you to change the way you make payments or the date on which you make them
- In some cases, we may agree to allow you to repay your mortgage over a longer period
- Work with you to explore other workout options including the government’s Mortgage Rescue Scheme
How you can help yourself:
- Contact us as soon as possible if you’re having problems repaying your mortgage or think that you might experience problems in the future
- Seek free, independent and impartial advice (see here for more details)
- Contact us quickly if we try to contact you
- Make sure all parties to the mortgage and anyone guaranteeing the mortgage, are kept up to date with what is happening
- Keep to the payment plan we agree with you or tell us if there is a change in your circumstances that may affect your ability to keep to the arrangement
- Check whether you are eligible for any state benefits or tax credits which could help increase your income or otherwise improve your financial circumstances
- If you have an insurance policy, such as a payment protection policy, for example, check whether it can help with your payments
- Let us know if you are in the process of selling your property
- Tell us if you move to a new address and provide us with an up to date telephone number to make it easier to contact you
If we cannot agree on a solution:
- We may send a Field Agent out to discuss your financial circumstances. The cost of the visit may be charged to your mortgage account
- We may start court proceedings and a ‘receiver of rent’ may be appointed and/or your
- rental property may be repossessed. If proceedings take place we strongly recommend that you attend court and that you seek independent, impartial advice prior to the hearing
- Starting court proceedings does not necessarily mean that we will repossess your property. We will keep trying to contact you by telephone and by letter to try to reach an alternative solution. Repossession is the last resort
- If repossession is unavoidable we will give you advice about getting in touch with your local authority before the eviction to see if they can find you somewhere else to live
- In the event, repossession occurs then we will sell the property for the best price we can reasonably obtain within a reasonable period of time
- We will give you reasonable time to remove possessions from the property
- If selling your home does not raise enough money to pay off the mortgage:
- You will still owe us the amount that is left over (a shortfall debt). We will tell you what this is as soon as reasonably possible
- If other borrowers are party to the mortgage as well as you then each of you is responsible for all of the money borrowed. This is true even if you normally pay only part of the mortgage
- We will contact you within six years of selling the property (five years in Scotland) to arrange for you to pay back what you still owe
- We will take account of your income, outgoings and any other assets when we arrange a payment plan with you for this shortfall debt. If we cannot arrange a suitable plan, we may go to court to get our money back. You may have to pay additional costs as a result
- If a shortfall debt is not paid it could affect whether you are able to get credit in the future