Can barely afford to live even with decent jobs.


Hi, you need to analyse your income and expenses. Follow the template in the link below and users can offer advice when they have more info.

pension v overpaying mortgagehttp://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=77217
 
Our debt [Mortgage & loans] - if fully serviced is now 60% or our net income...We cannot survive on this with 3 small children [utility bills creche etc]...
My bank have allowed me a 3 month moratorium on my mortgage [in itself, it is of no benefit as the money is needed for day-to-day survival] which has given us some TIME try to finance paying down some loans...I have to go to family members for help at this stage..

I have been advised to default on my unsecured debt - ie pay utility bills and mortgage but default on unsecured loans to banks and credit union. This will start a process where they will probably treaten a court action to get their money and presumably look for any marketable assets i might have...

I would advise you to talk to your bank about interest only mortgage or a moratorium
on 1 of your mortgages...
 
I have been advised to default on my unsecured debt

Was this professional advice? What is the expected outcome? Is it that it will take years for the unsecured creditors to pursue you through the legal system and although they might get a charge against your property, it is unlikely that they would be able to force a sale?
 
We had been paying interest only on both houses for two years and even with this we have accumilated huge personal debt, around 20,000 euro of it. ( personal loans and credit cards.)

This point towards core personal expenditure problems unrelated to your mortgage debt. You need to honestly itemise your income and expenditure and assess the difference. Take the advice of Steiner and complete the template. Make sure that you accurately identify all expenditure (even lunch & cups of coffee etc). Only when you have defined the extent of the problem can you begin to address a solution.
 
Frederic, what has changed since you took out the second mortgage (for your current PPR)? You say your income has doubled in that time. If you're struggling now with repayments, it should have been even more clear the moment you looked at the repayments on that second mortgage. Were you given a repayment schedule that showed you what your repayments would be?

It sounds like that regardless of the property market, you would be in trouble anyway if you were unable to survive on what was left after you paid your mortgage 4 years ago, it's just that the property market has shut off the only exit strategy you would otherwise have had.
 
Swyper is right, Frederic. Of the many of posts in the last few years from people in arrears it's the first time such circumsatnces have been described.
to sum up:-

- You are still both working and "earn decent money"
- Your own salary has doubled since you took the loans.
- You are only paying interest in the last two years
- but you can't make ends meet and are in debt.

Any one of the first three factors would make so many struggling couples envious.

Please forgive an almost rebuking tone in the above -it's just a unique post and something is very wrong,if not weird, and perhaps 44 brendan's advice is best - work out in details your costs and expences.

But may one ask a quick question - what is the income from the rental property and what's the interest payments on that loan ?
 
Well remembered Paddybloggit !

OP -I note that on your previous thread when you reopened in 2009 after some months gap there was only one response. I suggest this was because that in those intervening months there were so many other bad luck stories with people in far worse circumstances. In the meantime it's got even worse.

You were earning nearly 100k 4 yrs ago -and (based on what you say about doubling your income since you got the loans in 2005) -you(together) may now be earning over 100.000 euros a year. And you're both only about 35 yrs old !!

From what you said in your previous thread your annual rental income was only about 2/3k less than the interest payments. Even if your rental income is 10k less than your interest payments -which would be rather amazing - that still leaves a lot of earnings.

Frederic - EVERYONE has lost value on their properties in exactly the same proportion as you. No, I'm wrong - those who bought apartments have lost far more equity. Many of them are single income families earning well under half your income. And many are no-income families. And many of them are trapped with growing families in tiny spaces.

Your post makes no sense.

If any other poster thinks I'm being unfair please feel free to advise OP.
 
If any other poster thinks I'm being unfair please feel free to advise OP.

No, it's not unfair. It would be good to see the latest money makeover to get some clearer picture. What's happened is that the OP has taken on a stupid level of borrowings that were unsustainable from day 1. In fairness though, when returning to Ireland in 2007, I sat in a bank's mortgage lending room. They offered a ridiculous multiple of my wife and my salary (which we clearly were not going to take back with us from the UK), and offered to facilitate us to not have to sell our existing home. I can see how someone can be tempted by that. Seeing the repayment schedule, and knowing our likely takehome pay thankfully convinced us both to take a mortgage we were both comfortable with and selling our home in the UK. I honestly couldn't believe how much the bank was offering us. Unfortunately the banks are no longer the same entities they were back then, so it's now the taxpayers on the hook for this craziness.
 
... They offered a ridiculous multiple of my wife
So glad you didn't accept this given it could be construed as bigamy

Seriously though, I agree with oldnick, swyper and others. Fundamentally, although 60% of your take home is psychologically a huge chunk, it still leaves you with 40% of your take home. Given what you have indicated is your pay, that is an amount of money many families do not have available to live on. It would appear to me you have chronically lived beyond your means for many years. You need to stop thinking of your decent take home as a licence to spend and start serious budgeting. There are no quick fixes to chronic issues, this will be hard work and a process of re-education for you and your family (think of the example you give to your two little ones as to how live within their means - do you want them to face the pain of this lesson as adults?) You aren't going to like most of what people have to say, it is hard to be wrong, it is even harder to admit it.
 
The big change is childcare and other costs of having a family. That's like paying another mortgage.
 
I was speaking to a very good friend she is a professional.
She built up and worked her own business paid everything and every one.
Now she has nothing and is working to pay the bank.

Every now and again when it all gets too much and she is going north to go bankrupt.

Her biggest thing is she put her children in a creche and didnt see her babies and missed out on so much and for what.

Put your quality of life and your children first. If you let all the stuff go you would buy bigger and better in a years time with no debt.
 
i think it means he thinks people were being mean to him and edited his posts. though there is no sign that he did.
 
Steiner, in quoting the OP (post number 3), has left the OP's opening post up for all the world to see even though he made an attempt to erase his tracks.

I reckon the truth was too close to the bone ... that's why he upped sticks and left!