Treating you fairly when you cannot pay your mortgage

If you are having trouble paying your mortgage, we will treat you fairly. This factsheet explains how we can help you.
We will:

Contact you as soon as possible to discuss your problem;
talk to agencies who give advice (for example, Citizens Advice) if you want us to;
give you reasonable time to pay back the debt; and
Only start proceedings to repossess your home if we cannot solve the problem with you.
Confirm how you can complain if you are not happy.

We might be able to:

Arrange a new payment plan with you taking your and our interests into account;
Change the way you make your payments or the date you make them;
Allow you to pay back your mortgage over a longer period of time (which would reduce your monthly payments); or
Change the type of mortgage.

If we cannot do any of these things, we will tell you why. If we can make one of these arrangements with you, we will explain how it would work and give you time to consider it first.

What you can do to help us

Tell us as soon as possible if you are having problems repaying your mortgage.
Get in touch with us quickly if we try to contact you.
Make sure you keep any other people paying the mortgage, and anyone guaranteeing the mortgage, up to date with what is happening.
Keep to the payment plan we agree with you. If you do not make the payments, we might have to go to court to get back any money you owe us or to repossess your property.
Check whether you can get any state benefits or tax credits.
If you have an insurance policy, check whether it would help with your payments.
Tell us if you move to a new address.

You may want to talk to a professional adviser, such as a debt counsellor or a lawyer, before you change your mortgage arrangements.

Costs and charges

We may charge you for reasonable administrative and legal costs. We will tell you the amount you will have to pay, details confirmed in our Mortgage Tariff.

If we cannot agree on a solution

If we cannot agree on a payment plan with you, we may go to court to start proceedings to repossess your home.
We will keep trying to solve the problem with you, by talking to you about a payment plan, throughout the process.
Before we repossess your home, we will give you advice about getting in touch with your local authority to see if they can find you somewhere else to live.

If we repossess your home

We will sell it for the best price we can reasonably get. We will try to sell it as soon as possible.
We will give you reasonable time to take your possessions from your home.
We will use the money raised from selling your home to pay your mortgage and any other loans or charges.
If there is any money left over, we will pay it to you.

If selling your home does not raise enough money to pay off the mortgage

If there is not enough money from the sale to pay the whole mortgage, you will still owe us the amount that is left. We will tell you what this is as soon as possible.
If you bought your home with other people, each of you is responsible for all the money borrowed. This is true even if you normally only pay part of the mortgage.
We will contact you within six years of selling your property (five years in Scotland) to arrange for you to pay back what you still owe.
We will take account of your income and outgoings when we arrange a payment plan with you. But if we cannot arrange a suitable plan, we may go to court to get our money back. You might have to pay the court costs.
Not being able to pay off your mortgage could affect whether you are able to get credit in future.