It's a repayment mortgage. Not keen on going to interest only, particularly given the present situation with house prices. There will be no negative equity in our case at it stands. My wife receives what working tax credits she can. I have thought that the only options at present are:

1. Get the mortgage on a fixed rate - when the rates are good with my present lender.

2. Bring all the accounts up to date - (even if this means robbing Peter to pay Paul) and keep them up to date by making minimum payments only for the next 6 months (but by not involving Peter and Paul). Then apply for a consolidation loan at this time, as hopefully our credit ratings will be improved by upto date payment history.

What do you think?

are you on interest plus repayments or just interest? have you checked if you are entitled to any working tax benefits?

Hi could anyone give my some guidance as to what to do regards our present financial status?

We currently have a mortgage which is on my lenders standard variable rate. We tried to remortgage when the discount term ended in July, but this was just at the time that this 'credit crunch' started. Everything was approved in principle with a lender, who then came and valued the house at very much below what we expected which meant that the mortgage was not approved.

My wife has had a few employment 'issues' earlier in the year, which meant us being short for some of our unsecured payments. We did bring this up to date, but have fallen behind once again. I did try to get some further borrowing from our mortgage company, but because of arrears on unsecured debt they declined our application. I did appeal and forwarded an income and expenditure sheet showing that if they approved our application we would be about £350/month better off.

Our present situation is:

Unsecured loan - balance £5000.00 approx, 2 yrs left to go, 2 payments in arrears, 5.8%APR

Credit Card 1 - balance £5000 approx, upto date, 12.9% APR

Credit Card 2 - Balance £3500 approx, 2 payments in arrears, 34.9% APR

Credit Card 3 - Balance £1000 approx, upto date, 17.9%APR

We have just had to break into credit card 3 this month. I really want to consolidate these debts as we are only paying the minimum monthly repayment and credit card 2 is cripling us with the interest rate. They won't reduce this as we are in arrears and we had to use it 3 months ago for food. Credit card 3 has a £9K credit facility and they were offering balance transfers at 6.9% for the life of the balance. I have applied for this and it has been rejected, but I can guess why. I am likely to be making a payment on credit card 2 to bring it almost up to date in the next few days, but I may have to use credit card 3 to pay this months mortgage installment (not a good idea, I know). There are other issues with the energy bills direct debits which I had to cancel. We are living spot on to a budget, but one wrong move and it all messes up, which it does regularly. Rather then applying willy nilly for any old loan can anyone direct me to a company that could help taking into account the history of arrears. I am reluctant to consolidate the loan as the APR is extremley low. Also any advice re the mortgage would be great, I have not fixed the rate with my current lender until I know what the new rate is with the drop in interest rates. I don't want these debts hanging round my neck for the rest of my life which I know they will if we continue to make the minimum payments and we need to get these cleared so we can move on in our lives.

Any advice would be of great assistance. Thanks