Steve struggled with his mortgage payments
“A few years ago, I had gotten into some difficulties with the rest of my finances through over committing on a few different credit cards. My income wasn’t enough to cover our costs and I found it difficult to talk about it with my wife. We were effectively living hand to mouth whilst struggling to keep up with everything. On top of this, it had gotten more expensive to maintain our house, and I was feeling incredibly stressed about our situation.”
Steve and his partner re-mortgaged, but they struggled with the cost
“I’d always been with the same bank, so when it came to getting a mortgage I thought that sticking with them was the best option. Out of desperation, we took a bad deal from our bank as our mortgage provider, and as we approached the end of the term we realised that we simply couldn’t pay off the capital.
Their building society told them StepChange could help
“Luckily, we later managed to remortgage with our building society, who, towards the end of the term, not only looked after us really well but referred us to StepChange when we continued to struggle with balancing everything. Our finances were incredibly tight and uncomfortable and we were worried that our only option was to sell and move elsewhere, which we passionately didn’t want to do – there’s no way we’d be able to afford something else in the same area even if we downsized.”
StepChange helped them stay in their forever home
“Speaking to StepChange was a big relief, because we truly felt like they had our best interests at heart. The advice was good, the discussions were great and the explanation of how this thing would work was fabulous. And I was kept in the loop at every single stage. We’re now on a lifetime mortgage which suits our needs and have secured the house that our children grew up in for the rest of our lives. Without the referral from our building society, we wouldn’t have known that StepChange was able to help with mortgages – it was an absolute game changer.”