Mortgages:

Having trouble paying your mortgage?

If you are having trouble paying your mortgage, we’ll do our best to help.

We will:

• Contact you as soon as possible to discuss the problem
• Talk to advisory agencies acting on your behalf, such as Citizens' Advice, if you want us to
• Give you a reasonable time to pay back the debt; and
• Only start proceedings to repossess your home if we cannot solve the problem with you.

We might be able to:

• Arrange a new payment plan with you taking your and our interests into account
• Change the way you make your payments or the date you make them
• Allow you to pay your mortgage back over a longer period of time (which could reduce your monthly payments). This may increase the total amount you pay back; or
• Change the type of mortgage.

If we cannot do any of the above, we will tell you why. If we can make one of these arrangements with you, we will explain how it would work and give you an agreed period of time to consider it first.

What you can do to help us:

• Tell us as soon as possible if you are having, or anticipate, problems repaying your mortgage.
• Get in touch with us quickly if we try to contact you.
• Keep any other people paying the mortgage, and anyone guaranteeing the mortgage, up to date with what’s happening.
• Stick to the payment plan we agree with you. If you do not make the payments, we might have to go to court to get back any money you owe us or to repossess your property.
• Check whether you can get any state benefits or tax credits.
• If you have an insurance policy, check whether it would help with your payments.
• Tell us if you move to a new address.

You may want to talk to a professional adviser, such as a debt counsellor or a lawyer, before you change your mortgage arrangements.

Costs and charges

We may charge you for administrative and legal costs. We will tell you the amount you will have to pay.

If we cannot agree on a solution:

• If we cannot agree on a payment plan with you, we may go to court to start proceedings to repossess your home.
• We will keep trying to solve the problem with you throughout the process, by talking to you about a payment plan or assisting you with the sale of your property.
• Before we repossess your home, we will advise you on contacting your local authority to see if they can find you somewhere else to live.

If we repossess your home:

• We will sell it for the best price we can reasonably get. We will try to sell it as soon as possible.
• We will give you reasonable time to take your possessions from your home.
• We will use the money raised from selling your home to pay your mortgage first, then any other loans or charges secured on the property.
• If there is any money left over, we will pay it to you.

If selling your home does not raise enough money to pay off the mortgage:

• If there is not enough money from the sale to pay the whole mortgage, you will still owe us the amount that is left. We will tell you this amount as soon as possible and contact you so you can arrange to pay back what you owe.
• If you bought your home with other people, each of you is responsible for all the money borrowed, even if you normally only pay part of the mortgage.
• We will take account of your income and outgoings when we arrange a payment plan with you. But if we cannot arrange a suitable plan, we may go to court to get our money back and you may have to pay the court costs.
• Not being able to pay off your mortgage could affect whether you are able to get credit in future.