How to cope with mortgage arrears

Both my husband and I have been suffering from ill health for the past few years. Due to this, we have been unable to work and have had to claim benefits.

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This has largely resulted in us accruing a large amount of mortgage arrears. We were unable to get any help through insurance as it had been too expensive to take out any mortgage cover other than terminal illness.

Fortunately, we are both set to make a full recovery and return to work at some point in the not-too-distant future.

We were managing to just about cover the mortgage until interest rates shot up and our monthly mortgage payment increased by more than 50 per cent.

This was a huge jump and meant that we were not able to keep paying the mortgage and our arrears built up.

We also have several thousands of pounds of credit card and personal loan debt which we had to take out due to loss of income as the benefits we get simply do not cover our bills and cost of living needs, let alone our monthly mortgage cost.