www.iva.co.uk

Posted: **Fri Apr 22, 2011 11:37 am**

I cant afford to pay my mortgage anymore. My home is in negative equity of Â£40000. I at the moment have no missed payments on anything apart from my mortgage. What do I do?

Posted: **Fri Apr 22, 2011 12:04 pm**

Hi Stuart and welcome to the forum.

What other debts do you have? To be honest I'd pay the mortgage rather than the unsecured debts.

I think you should speak to a professional. Visit www.iva.com for a list of companies and reviews and give one or two a ring for some free and impartial advice.

Posted: **Fri Apr 22, 2011 5:07 pm**

Hi Stuart and welcome from me too. I agree with Jan and that you should try and keep up your mortgage repayments rather than payments to unsecured creditors.
You should get some free and impartial professional advice from the link in Jan's post and make your decision from there.
Keep posting as you will find a wealth of advice, help and support on here.

Posted: **Fri Apr 22, 2011 5:24 pm**

Hi - I have to agree with the others and recommend paying your mortgage first and then looking to a debt solution for your unsecured debt. If you don't want to keep the house, you can hand the keys back and add the shortfall to your unsecured debt in any debt solution. But please don't jeopardise your home for the sake of your credit cards!!! x

Posted: **Fri Apr 22, 2011 6:02 pm**

Secured debts have to be your first priority unless you don't want to keep your house.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to sit down and think about your priorities?

Posted: **Fri Apr 22, 2011 7:06 pm**

Hi
If you are on a repayment mortgage can you ask to revert to an interest only one ?
Your mortgage is a priority over your unsecured creditors
Regards

Posted: **Sat Apr 23, 2011 6:54 am**

Hi and welcome to the forum. All good advice above especially in respect of the mortgage and a good link provided to help you choose a couple of companies to talk to. Get yourself some free impartial case specific advice. All the best. x

Posted: **Sat Apr 23, 2011 7:30 pm**

hi stuart - as the others have said - you need to sit down and seperate your unsecured debts over your secured debt and priority payments ... I spent nearly a year struggling to pay my mortgage over credit card debt ... I even started to take cash out on the cards to pay the mortgage which was madness!
Secured & priority payments must be paid first.
National Debtline have some handy downloads to take you through how you go about prioritising your debts - its very scary to start with but if you're hanging on to the repayments by the skin of your teeth then its time to deal with it.