Get in touch

 

If you’re going through a difficult and stressful time, please contact us as soon as possible. We’ll try to support and help you to take the pressure off and make managing your account a bit easier. We’ll talk through some options that could make your payments more manageable, or give you some room to breathe. 

Talking to us won’t affect your credit file. If you agree to an arrangement with us then this maybe reflected on your credit file, but this could happen if you miss payments anyway.

We’ve a range of solutions we can offer you if you’re experiencing short or long-term financial difficulties. We’ll tailor our support to your circumstances and financial position both now and in the future. 

Some of the options could include:

  • Changing the date of your direct debit. To give you more flexibility and ease the pressure.
  • Reducing or pausing your monthly payments over an agreed period. This would appear as mortgage arrears on your credit file and we’d continue to charge you interest on your mortgage whilst your payments are paused or reduced. At the end of the agreed period, we’ll set-up an arrangement for you to repay the missed payments. 
  • Switching temporarily to interest only repayments. Will reduce your monthly payments as you’ll only be paying the interest on your mortgage for the agreed period. You won’t be paying back the money you borrowed and you’ll need to repay this in the future. This will mean your monthly payments will increase when you switch your mortgage back to repayment.  
  • Increasing the time left on your mortgage.  To spread your repayments over a longer period and reduce your monthly payments. With this option it’ll take you longer to repay your mortgage and you’ll pay more interest over the lifetime of your mortgage. 
  • Selling your property. As a last resort if you aren’t able to afford your mortgage in the long term we can support you and give you the time and space to sell your property. We appreciate how difficult this can be and will support you through the process. 

We also provide support to our home owner mortgage customers, who are up to date with payments but worried about their future mortgage payments, through the Mortgage Charter. 

Your finances

 

We’d recommend that you complete our income and expenditure form so we have a clear picture of your monthly expenses and how we can best support you. 

Once completed, a member of our Financial Assistance team will assess how we can tailor support to you. We'll then give you a call using the number we have on file for you.

An Income & Expenditure form is a great tool to give clarity on your finances. It takes into consideration every type of expense and income, and at the end you will be able to see how much you have remaining. If there are funds remaining, this is called a surplus. If there are no funds remaining, this is called a deficit. We use this outcome to make sure the support we offer you is tailored to your needs – today and months down the line. 

Please make sure you have a good understanding of all your income as well as outgoings (including for anyone who you share the bills with). It would be useful for you to have your mobile banking app to hand or bank statement.

To get a correct understanding of your situation, you’ll need to make sure you enter the most up to date values for each section. Otherwise, the form won’t give you an accurate final answer.

The form can take around 20 minutes to complete, or longer if you’re not sure of your finances. 


Getting in touch

 

You can call 01733 821 388 or email mortgage.support@aldermore.co.uk and please remember to include your name, account number and contact telephone number.

If you’re not feeling up to talking to us, you can ask us to speak to someone else on your behalf. In line with Data Protection laws, you’ll need to give your permission before we can speak to them, so please get in touch to let us know. While we can speak to someone else about your mortgage, only you can make changes to it.


What we'll talk about

 

We know speaking about finances can be daunting so to help you prepare we’ve outlined below the types of things we’ll talk about during the call: 

Person on phone call

 

  • Discuss your situation so we can understand any issues you’re experiencing
  • Ask you about your income and outgoings and any debts* you may have
  • Explore potential solutions to your situation for example, we’ll see if we can make changes to your mortgage, such as moving your payment date
  • Provide independent contacts if you would like more financial advice or support

 

*Please note we are unable to provide you with advice about debts you may have with other organisations.


Getting back on track

 

  • Review your budget
  • Complete the Income and Expenditure form
  • Review your monthly income and outgoings
  • Consider your financial priorities. Always ensure that you pay essential bills first. These will include:
    • Mortgage repayments
    • Council tax
    • Utility bills
    • Home and Car insurance

Contact your creditors and let them know about your situation. You should consider your financial priorities when contacting your creditors and pay essential bills first. Although they may encourage you to make full repayments, it’s always best to be open and clear about your situation and let them know how much you can realistically afford to pay.  You can then work with them to come up with a repayment plan.


Customers who've fallen behind on payments

 

As part of our ongoing commitment to supporting our customers, we've introduced a new self-service platform called Money Manager for customers who've fallen behind on mortgage repayments.

Money Manager can help with budget planning by enabling you to:

  • Input your Income and Expenditure information and download it as a PDF 
  • Stay on top of what's coming in and going out
  • Decide how your money will work for you
  • Determine how much disposable income you have

 

If you've fallen behind on payments you'll receive an invitation to Money Manager by SMS. To register, you'll need your mortgage account number.

Person on tablet

The impact of missing payments

 

It’s not great to hear, but it’s important to be aware of what can happen if you stop making repayments. It’s going to affect your credit file, and a poor credit score could mean:

  • You get rejected for future credit applications
  • It could affect your ability to get a mortgage in the future
  • It could affect anyone who is financially associated with you (for example through a joint bank account or credit account) and impact their ability to get credit.

If you continue to miss payments, we could apply fees to your mortgage, and as a last resort, take legal action to repossess your property to recover the amount you owe us.


Who else can help?

 

If you’d like independent debt advice there’s a range of services available including government agencies, free advice agencies and others that charge a fee. The services below will help you with carrying out an assessment, budgeting and offer a full tailored solution for your circumstances.

Family talking to a mortgage broker

Money Advice Trust –nationaldebtline.org
or call 0808 8084000

Citizens Advice adviceguide.org.uk

PayPlan – payplan.com
or call 0800 280 2816

Financial Conduct Authority - www.fca.org.uk
for guidance on how to prioritise your debts and budget planning

Money Helper -moneyhelper.org.uk

Subject to status. Your mortgage is secured on your property.  Your property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments.