Guarantor or co borrower! really worried!

A

aquaceri

Registered User
Messages
45
Hi there,

When i applied for my first mortgage it was recommended that my Dad go as Guarentor on it for the first five years. I remember this conversation with the lending agent very clearly. My father agreed. I had to fill out my application and then my father had to go to see the lending agent to fill out some forms also. I wasnt present at that meeting. Anyway everything went ahead and I signed for my mortgage with my solicitor a couple of months later.

Recently in a number of conversations with my lenders I have been told that my father is in fact co borrower and not a guarentor, I have argued this point with the bank a few times now and they are adamant that he is a co borrower.

This has me very concerned as I may be soon facing redundancy, I have a redundancy policy on my mortgage in only my name which I was advised by my lender to take out. If it turns out my father is co borrower will i be able to claim off the policy i have been paying huge amounts into for the past two and a half years??

Surely if my father was a co borrower he would have had to be present when I signed for my mortgage at the solicitors?

My bank are not helping me with this at all as they are adamant he is a co borrower...Do I contact my solicitor? How do I find out for sure what the true situation is? I am very worried about this as I don't want my father to be liable for any arrears I may have and also I want to own the house I am struggling to pay for, not that my father would ever try to take the house away but if he is co borrower then he is legally entitled to half????
Any advice would be much appreciated.
 
aquaceri said:
Hi there,

When i applied for my first mortgage it was recommended that my Dad go as Guarentor on it for the first five years. I remember this conversation with the lending agent very clearly. My father agreed. I had to fill out my application and then my father had to go to see the lending agent to fill out some forms also. I wasnt present at that meeting. Anyway everything went ahead and I signed for my mortgage with my solicitor a couple of months later.

Recently in a number of conversations with my lenders I have been told that my father is in fact co borrower and not a guarentor, I have argued this point with the bank a few times now and they are adamant that he is a co borrower.

This has me very concerned as I may be soon facing redundancy, I have a redundancy policy on my mortgage in only my name which I was advised by my lender to take out. If it turns out my father is co borrower will i be able to claim off the policy i have been paying huge amounts into for the past two and a half years??

Surely if my father was a co borrower he would have had to be present when I signed for my mortgage at the solicitors?

My bank are not helping me with this at all as they are adamant he is a co borrower...Do I contact my solicitor? How do I find out for sure what the true situation is? I am very worried about this as I don't want my father to be liable for any arrears I may have and also I want to own the house I am struggling to pay for, not that my father would ever try to take the house away but if he is co borrower then he is legally entitled to half????
Any advice would be much appreciated.
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I not sure of the legal in and outs but I would not take banks word for it unless they provide you with paperwork showing it in black and white with his signature, also review own paperwork as well.

I have seem an example where bank claiming they have a personal guarantee from a person but cant produce it and recently when person going for refincancing bank tried to get new guarantee with two names instead of one(no discussion) please sign here.

Anyone signing anything from bank now should read it extremely carefully, get advise, keeps copy of what you sign and never take any kind of verbal thing from them (may need to go to court in a few years and judge will look for paperwork and not heresay)
 
Ask the bank for a copy of the forms you both signed with them. You are entitled to see them. Contact your solicitor and confirm with him that it is only your name on the deeds.
Sounds very odd that they made your Dad sign up to a joint mortgage. But nothing surprises me anymore with banks.
 
If your father is a joint borrower then his name will appear on the Mortgage bank statement with yours. The fact that he may be jjoint borrower does not mean he is joint legal owner of the house. In other words the house could be in your sole name and your Dad is joint borrower. As you say the issue is whether he is either joint borrower or signed a Guarantee. The latter would normally be the case if the liability was to exist only for 5 years or so.
 
Sounds like a guarantee to me, do you remember if your father had to take out life cover for the mortgage?
If he is co borrower he would have had to complete the mortgage application with you as a joint applicant.
 
Hi there,

Yes he had to take out life assurance and I pay it along with mine and all the other insurances. Does this mean he is co borrower? His name does appear on any correspondance that I receive from the bank. I am just really concerned that this is going to prevent me from claiming from my redundancy policy or getting any help towards my mortgage repayments if I am made redundant. I am a lone parent with two children and my mortgage is costing me 1380 per month plus and extra 200 per month off arrears which I was forced into as when i approached the bank a year ago asking for a 3 month payment break they said "no you will just have to fall into arrears"... I approached them knowing i wasnt going to be able to make the full repayment, i wasnt in one cent of arrears when i contacted them. They were as usual completely unhelpful :( but that's another story. I will contact my solicitor today and find out about the deeds.

Thanks
 
aquaceri said:
Hi there,

Yes he had to take out life assurance and I pay it along with mine and all the other insurances. Does this mean he is co borrower? His name does appear on any correspondance that I receive from the bank. I am just really concerned that this is going to prevent me from claiming from my redundancy policy or getting any help towards my mortgage repayments if I am made redundant. I am a lone parent with two children and my mortgage is costing me 1380 per month plus and extra 200 per month off arrears which I was forced into as when i approached the bank a year ago asking for a 3 month payment break they said "no you will just have to fall into arrears"... I approached them knowing i wasnt going to be able to make the full repayment, i wasnt in one cent of arrears when i contacted them. They were as usual completely unhelpful :( but that's another story. I will contact my solicitor today and find out about the deeds.

Thanks
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It does sound like you have a joint mortgage. Do you mind me asking if it is a sub-prime lender you are with or are you with one of the main banks?
Not sure how it affects your insurance policy. It shouldn't but those insurance policies are notoriously difficult to get paid from.
 
Sunny said:
It does sound like you have a joint mortgage. Do you mind me asking if it is a sub-prime lender you are with or are you with one of the main banks?
Not sure how it affects your insurance policy. It shouldn't but those insurance policies are notoriously difficult to get paid from.
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No it is with EBS - no subprime. to be honest I have regretted going with them from day 1! they are extremely unhelpful in every situation :( As with most people I am in negative equity so cannot even change banks. The redundancy policy is with a company called Genworth which I later found out is actually EBS!
 
aquaceri said:
No it is with EBS - no subprime. to be honest I have regretted going with them from day 1! they are extremely unhelpful in every situation :( As with most people I am in negative equity so cannot even change banks. The redundancy policy is with a company called Genworth which I later found out is actually EBS!
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I suppose not much you can do until you get your hands on the docs. Sounds very strange.
 
Do you remember if you chose to protect 100% of your earnings under the mortgage repayment protection policy? I am not familiar with the Genworth policy but usually you can split the protection on a joint mortgage e.g 50% of the mortgage repayment covered if you lose your job, 50% if the joint applicant loses theirs or you can cover 100% of one applicant's earnings.
 
NorfBank said:
Do you remember if you chose to protect 100% of your earnings under the mortgage repayment protection policy? I am not familiar with the Genworth policy but usually you can split the protection on a joint mortgage e.g 50% of the mortgage repayment covered if you lose your job, 50% if the joint applicant loses theirs or you can cover 100% of one applicant's earnings.
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I actually didnt even know that I had this policy and only found out when I rang up to see what insurance was costing me so much! They told me I have the "gold" package, which covers me for 1300 per month which is more or less my full mortgage repayment without any arrears, It is just in my name aswell as far as I am aware.
 
Well then you should be covered for up to 12 months unemployment. There may be a deferred period i.e you have to be out of work for a certain number of weeks before the policy kicks in.
 
Hi I am in a similar position now. Can't afford my mortgage anymore after 8 years. Filled out a financial statement and they are telling me my father is still on the mortgage as a co-loanee. When I took out the mortgage I was told he was a guarantor. I can find nothing to this only a mention in the loan offer that he was to get mortgage life assurance for a period of 5 years to the value of €25k whereas I was to get the insurance for the full amount of the mortgage(over 350ks). The insurance was automatically cancelled after 5 years as that's the term that was agreed for my father to be guarantor. Where do I stand with this. Can they go after him because I can't pay or can am I entitled to negotiate a debt settlement on my own as I was the only one who ever paid the mortgage and am the only one on the deeds
 
In January 2003, the EBS were the organisation that ran the advertising campaign suggesting that older people, parents, be asked to support their children to purchase their homes.

Now we see the consequences. At the time many organisations supporting older people advised older people not to participate in this recommended procedure. Exploitation by the Banks.
In fact I think there were objections from some of these groups to the advertising watchdog
Browtal
 
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pablohoney said:
Hi I am in a similar position now. Can't afford my mortgage anymore after 8 years. Filled out a financial statement and they are telling me my father is still on the mortgage as a co-loanee. When I took out the mortgage I was told he was a guarantor. I can find nothing to this only a mention in the loan offer that he was to get mortgage life assurance for a period of 5 years to the value of €25k whereas I was to get the insurance for the full amount of the mortgage(over 350ks). The insurance was automatically cancelled after 5 years as that's the term that was agreed for my father to be guarantor. Where do I stand with this. Can they go after him because I can't pay or can am I entitled to negotiate a debt settlement on my own as I was the only one who ever paid the mortgage and am the only one on the deeds
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You need to get your hands on all the paperwork. Contact your solicitor who completed the purchase for you. It doesn't sound like your Father was a co-loanee. It sounds like he was Guarantor for a 5 year period which was a common practice back then. However, you really need to get a copy of everything that you and your father signed. The bank obviously have reason for believing that your father is on the mortgage. You need to find out why.
 
I can find nothing to this only a mention in the loan offer that he was to get mortgage life assurance for a period of 5 years to the value of €25k whereas I was to get the insurance for the full amount of the mortgage(over 350ks).
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If this is the only Letter of Offer from the Bank then it should be patently clear whether the loan was approved in sole or joint names. It should also be clear whether a guarantee from your father was required. It makes no sense that a L/O would include a requirement for life cover from an individual who was not a counterparty to the loan!
 
I will get onto my solicitor but I doubt they will remember as it was so long ago.all I know is that I was told he was a gaurantor for 5 years, a co loanee was never mentioned to me.my father says the same as me and we were never in the ebs together the meetings and signings etc were always separate
 
Contact the bank rather than your solicitor. Ask for a copy of the Loan Agreement. This is the formal loan document which must explicity contain all terms and conditions of the loan. Until you get a copy of this agreement, you will have no verification of the contract.
Your solicitor is likely to have trouble locating a 2003 file, which by now has probably been either destroyed or archived.
 
Thanks for the advice. They are aome shower the way they try to con people. If they have him as a co loanee it's a total con as this was definitely not examined to me and I signed on my own
 
aquaceri said:
No it is with EBS - no subprime. to be honest I have regretted going with them from day 1! they are extremely unhelpful in every situation :( As with most people I am in negative equity so cannot even change banks. The redundancy policy is with a company called Genworth which I later found out is actually EBS!
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Aquacri.
1. Genworth is an insurance company . EBS do not own them , EBS are an intermediary.
2. It was EBS who sold you that policy, they should therefore be helpful in helping you access that policy should you be made redundant.From experience they will straight away pass you to Genworth.
3. Means Genworth will be (blamed) unfairly for any misunderstanding on what policy covers.
4. The policy you probably have is an MRPI policy , a type of Payment Protection Policy.
5. From experience with Genworth , they do pay out on forced Redundancy but NOT on voluntary redundancy.
6. It would be dear eg if you pay 100 per mth , Ebs probably gets 70+ euro commission each month.

I have great experience of Mrpi/PPi .Sees threads on ppi.
If you want, ring me on 0872437139 for advice.
I do not need to know your name.
 
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