Help with mortgage payment difficulties
If you're worried about keeping up with your mortgage payments, we're here to help. Please contact our Mortgage Support Team as soon as you can. You can reach us at 0800 083 9341 (freephone) or 0161 923 8025, you can also email us at mortgagesupport@themanchester.co.uk.
The sooner you get in touch, the sooner we can talk through options that might help. Remember, reaching out to us about payment difficulties won’t affect your credit rating.
Lines open 8:30am to 5:00pm Monday - Friday, excluding bank holidays.
Frequently asked questions
Manchester Building Society will:
- Contact you if you miss a scheduled mortgage payment.
- Consider your individual circumstances.
- Talk to an agency which gives debt advice, such as the Citizens Advice, if you want us to consider a revised repayment plan.
- Only start proceedings to repossess your home once we have exhausted all other options.
- Manchester Building Society may consider a reasonable alternative payment plan or mortgage structure.
- Tell us as soon as possible if you think you may experience problems repaying your mortgage or making the full monthly mortgage payments.
- Seek independent debt advice if you would like help with managing your finances and before you change your mortgage arrangements.
- Contact us if we try to get in touch with you.
- Make sure that you keep any linked borrowers or guarantors who are jointly responsible for paying the mortgage up to date with what is happening.
- Keep to the payment plan we agree, or tell us if there is a change in your circumstances which may affect the arrangement. If you do not make the agreed repayments, 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 which could help to increase your income.
- If you have an insurance policy, check whether it can help with your payments.
- Tell us if you move to a new address.
- Manchester Building Society will do everything it realistically can to help you keep your home/property.
- We will ask you to discuss matters with us in order to gain a better understanding of your problems and then try to get an arrangement in place according to your current circumstances.
- Reducing your payments for a period of time to allow time for your circumstances to improve.
- Arranging a plan to repay any money owed at an affordable monthly amount. This will be tailored to your individual circumstances and based on how much you can afford.
- Extending your term to give you a longer amount of time to pay it back.
- Changing the type of mortgage from repayment to interest only or part repayment and part interest only.
- Reviewing your interest rate.
- Reviewing the amount of interest we will charge to your account.
- Reviewing how much you have outstanding to pay.
- Giving you time to sell your property.
- Access to free, independent debt advice via our partner PayPlan.
- Changing your payment method or date you pay.
- Where you make lower payments, the difference will be added to the balance of your mortgage and be charged interest at the same interest rate as the existing borrowing.
- We will review your financial position every 6 months (or more often if appropriate).
- You may be trying to sell your home/property to pay off the mortgage and cannot make the full payment due. We will again try to help you by accepting a payment that you can afford during the sale process.
- We will ask that you provide documentary proof that your property is being sold for a price that is achievable in the current market.
- Your estate agent should be able to write and confirm this for you.
- We will also need your solicitor's details and we can then keep in contact with them to make sure the sale is progressing.
If you are in arrears, we may charge you for reasonable administrative and legal costs which are laid out in the Tariff of Charges. We will also tell you the amount you will have to pay when we write to you.
- We may send an independent debt counsellor or tracing agent to see you to discuss your financial circumstances. This will give us a better understanding of your problems and help us put a suitable arrangement in place with your agreement. The cost of this visit may be charged to your account.
- We may need to go to court to start proceedings to repossess your home. If proceedings take place, we strongly recommend that you attend the court and that you seek independent debt advice.
- We do not have to go to court to appoint LPA Receivers for Buy to Let properties.
- Starting court proceedings does not necessarily mean that we will repossess your home. We will keep trying to solve the problem with you. Possession or appointing LPA Receivers in the case of Buy to Let Mortgages is a last resort.
- Before we repossess your home, we will advise you about getting in touch with your local authority to see if they can find you somewhere else to live.
- Manchester Building Society will only ever repossess a property as a last resort.
- We are committed to working with our borrowers to try and make sure this does not happen.
- We will not force anyone to leave their home for at least a year after their first missed payment, unless under exceptional circumstances.
- 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 and any other loans or charges against the property.
- If there is any money left over, we will pay it to you.
- All associated legal and sales costs will be debited to the account.
- If there is not enough money from the sale to pay the whole mortgage, you will still owe us the amount that is left (a shortfall debt). We will tell you what this is as soon as possible.
- If you bought your home with other borrowers, each of you is responsible for all the money borrowed. This is true even if you normally only pay part of the mortgage.
- We will contact you within six years of selling your property to arrange for you to pay back what you still owe.
- We will take into account your income and outgoings when we arrange a payment plan for this shortfall debt with you. But if we cannot agree a suitable plan, we may have to go to court to get our money back. You might have to pay additional court costs.
- If a shortfall debt is not paid, it could affect whether you are able to get credit in future.
- If you have had a Buy to Let mortgage we may obtain a charge against your home.
- If you do not make an arrangement to repay the shortfall debt on a Buy to Let mortgage, we could take repossession proceedings against your home.
Some companies may invite you to sell the property to them and then lease it back as a way of resolving your short term financial difficulty. Please be careful as such actions may not be in your long term best interest. We would advise you to seek independent advice before entering into any arrangement of this type.
If you do this, you will still owe us any outstanding debt. Please discuss this option with us or an independent adviser before taking such action.
The Mortgage Charter
The Mortgage Charter is a set of promises made by the government, banks, UK lenders and regulators to help people who are finding it hard to pay their mortgage.
If you have a home loan with us and you’re keeping up with your payments, there are now ways to make those payments smaller for a while, without it hurting your credit record. Here are two ways we can help:
1. Increase your mortgage term:
You can choose to take more time to pay back your mortgage. That way, your monthly payments will be smaller. You don’t have to go through extra checks if your new finish date doesn’t go past your retirement age. Just remember: you’ll end up paying more in total because you’re paying for longer. You can go back to your old plan within 6 months without any extra checks.
2. Pay only the interest for a little while:
For up to 6 months, you can choose to just pay the interest and not the actual loan. This makes your payments smaller for a bit. But your loan won’t get smaller during that time, so after the 6 months, your payments will go up again.
If you want to know more or need help, you can call us on 0161 923 8025 or email mortgagesupport@themanchester.co.uk.
Lines open 8:30am - 5:00pm Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays.
Independent advice
MoneyHelper
A government-backed service offering free, impartial guidance and further support if needed.
www.moneyhelper.org.uk
Turn2Us
A confidential online calculator to help you check if you are eligible for any benefits
www.turn2us.org.ukCitizens Advice Gateshead
As a member of Newcastle Building Society Group, you have access to Helping Hand, a service provided by Citizens Advice Gateshead.
This service is dedicated to supporting our members with expert advice when you need it. To access Helping Hand, call us on 0161 923 8025 or email mortgagesupport@themanchester.co.uk.
Lines open 8:30am - 5:00pm Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays.
YOUR MORTGAGE WILL BE SECURED ON YOUR HOME. YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON YOUR MORTGAGE.