Rochdale mum suffering "mentally, physically and emotionally" with interest-only mortgage
Tina Hogarth took out her £184,000 mortgage in 2007. It was transferred by the government to TSB Whistletree following the collapse of Northern Rock
A single mother from Rochdale, who feels trapped in an interest-only mortgage, is worried she will loose her house in three years time.
55-year-old, Tina Hogarth, said she has suffered “mentally, physically and emotionally” after her £184,000 mortgage taken out in 2007 was transferred by the government to TSB Whistletree following the collapse of Northern Rock.
Since then, she has been unable to switch to a more favourable repayment mortgage deal because of stricter lending criteria.
Tina's end of mortgage term is on the horizon in 2027, and the full debt is still outstanding.
"I’ve worked hard all my life,” said Tina, who works for an art college specialising in neurodiverse students, “and I don’t want to lose my house.
“My son says to me all the time ‘mum, I don’t want to lose the house, it’s my home’.”
She has recently started to try to pay off £1,000 of the outstanding loan amount per month to reduce the balance, and is exploring other options of raising capital.
“Right now, I don’t even have £50 left at the end of the month for food or petrol,” she said. “I’ve thought about cashing in my two small pensions, because I just have to find a way.”
Tina’s problems began when she was advised to use the equity in her home to re-mortgage in 2007 to pay for five rental apartments.
At the time, she owned a kitchen design and fitting business, and gave birth to her son in 2009.
But the credit crunch not only affected her mortgage, but also wiped out her business, and she was declared bankrupt a year later.
“I didn’t have a repayment vehicle for the mortgage because I had the apartments,” she said, “but I lost all the apartments, because they weren’t held in a limited company, and I lost the kitchen showroom, everything.”
A court allowed Tina to keep her home, but by now she was a single parent and often struggled to make the monthly payments at the inflated rates charged by TSB Whistletree.
“It was impossible to get another mortgage anywhere else,” she said. “I remember it going up to more than £1,000 a month and thinking ‘how the hell am I going to pay this on my own’?
“We weren’t given an option, it was TSB Whistletree whether we liked it or not, and we all knew that they were charging higher interest rates.
“I’ve been so depressed for such a long time - it’s been horrific. My mental health has been through the roof to the point where I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown.
“It’s hard trying to come to terms with losing everything I owned and being a single parent and not knowing how I was going to live from one day to another.
“I’m stuck between a rock and another rock, unless I go and get a job for £100,000 a year.”
Tina is signed up to law firm Harcus Parker’s group claim against TSB Whistletree, through which she is hoping to recoup some of the additional money she has been charged.
“I would not hesitate - it would go straight off the mortgage,” she said.
There is currently an ongoing High Court trial against TSB bank.
TSB Bank has been approached for a comment.