Don’t Lose Your Home Due To Mortgage Arrears
Failing to meet home loan repayments could see you lose your house.
Basically your lender has the right to sell your house if you fall behind in
repayments; fail to make up the repayments within a specified time frame after
receiving default notices; and don’t have a defence for doing so. According to
statistics, it is the low-doc and non-conforming borrowers who are getting
into trouble with their mortgage. Around 7 per cent of low-doc home loans in
Australia are in arrears.
Steps To Take:
- As soon as you miss a repayment get legal advice and contact your lender
about trying to work out a repayment schedule. This will be very helpful in
preventing any defaults from being placed on your credit history.
- Under the Consumer Credit Code, if you’ve fallen on hard times due to
illness, injury or job loss you might qualify for a hardship variation to
your repayments.
- If adjustment to your set repayments is not an option, try to sell the
house yourself rather than let it go at a mortgagee sale. This is only
possible before your lender commences court action. Although banks are bound
to try to get the best price possible for a house, the RBA says voluntary
sales seem to fetch between 15 to 20 per cent more than
mortgagee-in-possession sales.
- There are circumstances borrowers are allowed to access the funds in
their superannuation to get their home loan back on track. The Australian
Prudential Regulation Authority needs to approve the early release of
superannuation. In 2006, APRA approved 13,781 applications for the early
release of super due to financial stress resulting from either mortgage
payments or medical expenses. Be careful. This is only an option if your
financial difficulties are short- term. If they are ongoing, you might still
lose your house and have little superannuation to fall back on.
- You may be able to borrow some money from family or friends to help you
in the short term while trying to get back on track.
- Depending on your insurance cover, some company policies include home
loan repayments. This will only be possible with policies like income
protection or mortgage protection insurance.
- Several state governments offer short term, interest free mortgage
relief loans to cover temporary shortfalls. You must live in the property
and the loans will only be granted if the value of the house and size of the
mortgage are under certain thresholds.
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