House Equaty

[lizzydrippin]

My son has a mortgage on his house which is at least 30,000 in equaty. Apart from it being a very bad time to sell a house, coupled with the fact that he'd like to carry on living in it, is there any way he can gain access to some of the equaty (like 15,000 for instance) without actually selling it?

[Eve]

Has he looked into either remortaging or taking a second charge?

An appointment with an independent financial advisor (ie not tied to any particular products as they are often in banks etc...) to get some sound independant advice as to the best way to proceed.

[Postdog]

Other than borrowing on the house, I don't think there is. I needed something similar a few years back and couldn't find a way. I'd also stay away from a loan unless it is going to be used on the house to increase value.

[pretty_snowdrop]

As Jenna said a remortgage could be they way forward x

[starone]

I think those release equity agreements are for older people. They don't want you to live too long before they can claim their money back.

[lizzydrippin]

Thanks for your responses folks, appreciated x

[Hawkwalk]

you must also be mindfull that house prices may continue to drop and the equity could well go down in a short space of time.

[pretty_snowdrop]

Lizzy, how much is the house worth? Depending on the value, he may have problems with a remortgage if it doesn't fall into the loan to value criteria. He will have to check all the lastest rates, but i know quite a lot of banks require a LVT of max 70%. Because your son wishes to release funds this may not be feasible.

[ubasses]

The best place to start is with the Company he has his existing mortgage with. As they already have the first charge over the property the fees will be cheaper. A lot will depend on the size of his existing mortgage and the percentage of the equity left after the extra loan. Also the total borrowing and repayments will have to meet normal lending criteria in relation to annual salary and income/expenditure.

[lizzydrippin]

The house is worth around 80-90,000 (we're in West Yorkshire) and there's 40,000 owing on it. Another problem might be the fact that my son has had his hours at work dropped right down to 16 hrs a week which obviously doesn't help much. The mortgage is just 300 per month so there's never been any problems with regards to paying it and its been bang on time for the last 11 yrs (don't know whether that makes the mortgage company sympathetic with regards to giving a second mortgage.