Support for customers experiencing financial difficulties

Switching to a new product may be a good way to help you lower your repayments. You can switch products up to three months before your existing deal is due to end without the need for another affordability check. We’ll write to you to three months before your existing deal is due to end to let you know.

To speak with someone about switching to a new product with us, please call our customer support team on 01634 821273.

You can take out an interest only agreement for up to six months without it impacting your credit file. This will temporarily reduce your monthly payments by only paying the interest instead of making payments towards the current balance of your mortgage, also known as the capital balance. We’ll write to you before it’s due to finish to explain what options you have to pay back the capital balance that is not paid during the interest-only arrangement.

Things to consider:

• Higher monthly mortgage payments after the temporary interest only period. As you’re only paying off the interest on your mortgage, your capital balance won’t be reducing.
• Capital balance will continue to have interest charged on it. This means you’ll end up paying more interest over the remaining term of your mortgage.

To speak with someone about an interest only arrangement, please call our customer support team on 01634 821273.

Extending the length of your mortgage term means you’ll benefit from lower payments as you’ll be paying your mortgage balance over a longer period.

You will be able to reduce the term up to six months after the extension takes effect without an affordability assessment, which can take you back to the original term or a term in between the original term and your new term.

If you want to reduce the term after the six months term extension, an affordability assessment will be required.

Please note this is not available for customers with an interest only mortgage.

Things to consider:

• Your mortgage will take longer to pay off. If you decide to change back to your original term, your payments will be higher but you’ll be paying less interest so your mortgage will be paid off sooner.
• The overall cost of your mortgage will increase.
• As interest rates change, your payment may also change.

To speak with someone about extending your mortgage term, please call our customer support team on 01634 821273.

You can only choose one of these options under the Mortgage Charter.

These are not long-term solutions; they should only be used as a last resort as they will end up costing you more. If you can meet your mortgage repayments, then you should continue to do so.

Under the terms of the Charter, we don’t need to assess whether these options are affordable for you, nor whether they are suitable for you. This is known as ‘execution only’ and any changes to your mortgage will be carried out on an execution only basis.

We’re unable to provide you with advice so we recommend you seek any independent advice from a legal and financial professional before entering into this arrangement.

It will take up to 15 days from the date we receive your signed forms to make the necessary changes to your account. If you’ve a payment that’s due during the 15-day period, you’ll need to pay it as normal.

If you’re worried about meeting your mortgage repayments, now or in the near future, we’re here to help you. Our experienced team are trained in assessing individual circumstances and are here to talk you through your available options.

We’ll work with you to provide support that’s tailored to your individual circumstances and based on what you can afford to pay. Your credit score will not be impacted by contacting us to find out what options are available.

We may be able to consider making some changes to your mortgage account for a short period of time to help you manage your payments. It’s important to remember that if we’re able to agree a temporary change to your mortgage payments, the amount unpaid will still be owed when the change comes to an end. If you pay less than the interest due your mortgage balance will increase, as will the amount of interest you pay over the remaining term of the mortgage. We’ll also need to report the arrangement to the credit reference agencies, which could affect your ability to borrow money in the future.

If you want to talk to someone please call our customer support team as soon as possible on 01634 821273, they’re available between 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday. You may also find it useful to visit the MoneyHelper or UK Finance websites for out-of-hours assistance. In addition, we’ve also listed some free third party resources at the foot of the page.

Information we’ll need:

To help us consider what support we can give you, we’ll need a full understanding of your current income and expenditure.

We’ve worked alongside Paylink Solutions to create an online income and expenditure form for residential borrowers or buy to let borrowers who have up to and including three rental properties.

Completing this form will allow us to assess the information before we call you to discuss your options. We aim to deal with all requests within five working days.

If you’re a buy to let borrower with four or more rental properties call our customer support team on 01634 821273 instead.

If we’re unable to offer assistance, our team will provide guidance on what steps you need to take and may suggest that you seek independent financial advice. We cannot offer advice about debts you hold with other organisations. In such instances, you should speak to the organisation involved and/or approach an independent free debt advice service. Contact details for some of these services are listed below. There are also a number of self-help tools, money guidance sites or debt advice options which are available to you at the foot of this page.

PayPlan

Offers free, simple, independent debt advice to anyone who needs it. Their mission is to help people become debt-free through clear, honest advice and solutions that work.

Their help is free to everyone, with no obligations, strings attached or hidden costs.

To help improve your relationship with money, PayPlan has resources available such as list of organisations to support your mental health, as well as offering tools to help you organise your finances.

They could help you with:

• taking the stress away from debt
• looking after your wellbeing
• reducing your spending
• working out your budget
• setting your financial goals

Visit PayPlan today and take control of your financial future.

Financial support charities

• Citizens Advice
• PayPlan
• StepChange
• The Money Advice Trust

Personal advice websites

• Money Saving Expert
• Gingerbread - advice for single parent families
• Mumsnet
• Netmums
• Domestic Abuse Support
• UK Finance

Credit reference agencies

• Equifax
• Experian
• TransUnion

If you’d like to improve your finances, it could help to look at the bigger picture and create a budget showing all of your incoming and outgoing finance.

Find the budget planner that works for you:

• MoneyHelper
• Citizens Advice
• PayPlan - excel spreadsheet and printable planner available

Once you’ve made a budget, you can prioritise your important bills or debts and spot where you could make your savings.

Even if you’re not facing financial difficulties, we’ve listed some of the things that could help you save.

Top tips

• Review subscriptions on a regular basis to see if you could get a better deal on your TV, broadband, mobile or energy bill before the end of your contract.
• Set up automatic payments to avoid potential late fees.
• If you drive, try walking or cycling more. As well as saving you money, it could help you get healthier without a gym membership.
• When you get unexpected cash, try to do one thing with it that saves money in the long run.

Food and drink

• If you enjoy a coffee, check out each store’s loyalty scheme. You can sometimes get bonus points from bringing a reusable cup, earning you a free drink faster.
• Try your local market instead of the supermarket, if they’ve got reduced overheads you could save more money.
• If you do go to the supermarket, try only going once a week to help avoid buying more. Buy own-brand food and go around 7pm to purchase reduced-to-clear items that could be frozen to eat later. It may also help to make a list before you go to keep you from buying items on impulse.
• Create a meal planner to avoid food waste.
• Try growing your own vegetables. As meat is more expensive, you could experiment with a variety of vegetarian meals you enjoy too.
• Prepare lunch before work instead of going out to eat.

Leisure

• Book your holidays in advance and shop around to find the best price.
• You could buy clothing, jewellery, or home decor second-hand - and it helps to recycle.
• Before you buy something, try checking for vouchers first.
• Explore free resources such as museums or borrow books from your local library instead of buying them.

Energy

• Turning down your thermostat by just one degree could make a big difference to the amount of energy you use and could cut your heating bills by up to 10%.
• Replacing normal lightbulbs with LED alternatives could help you make unexpected savings. A traditional 60 watt light bulb left on for 10 hours a day can add up to £25 a year to your electricity, but an LED bulb, which only uses 15% of the energy, will consume just £4 of electricity.
• Unplugging or switching off televisions, computers and video games consoles at the power switch when not in use could save you up to £70 a year.
• Consider taking a shower instead of a bath. A bath uses around 90 litres of water, 60 litres or so of hot water and 30 litres of cold water, whereas a 10-minute shower typically only uses six litres of hot water and three litres of cold water.
• Washing clothes at a lower temperature could save you up to £40 a year. Modern washing machines can clean clothes effectively at lower temperatures and turning down the dial could help you get three cycles instead of two using the same amount of energy.
• Asking your energy supplier to install a smart meter will show you exactly how much energy your appliances are using and help you gauge the overall energy consumption of your home.