Mortgage Question.

[Gundo]

So last year I was diagnosed with bi-lateral testicular cancer and really only could work for 4 months of the year, long story short bills piled up abit for us. I was wondering if anyone knows anything about doing "interest only" payments on your Mortgage of if they may put the Mortgage on hold for a month or two so someone can play catch up.

Anyone have any insight?? Its kind of a gut check to have to do it but thanks to poor health in the last year and starting a new job Im low on options.

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by Gundo

So last year I was diagnosed with bi-lateral testicular cancer and really only could work for 4 months of the year, long story short bills piled up abit for us. I was wondering if anyone knows anything about doing "interest only" payments on your Mortgage of if they may put the Mortgage on hold for a month or two so someone can play catch up.

Anyone have any insight?? Its kind of a gut check to have to do it but thanks to poor health in the last year and starting a new job Im low on options.

Jeez that sucks, sorry to hear that.

I have a Line of Credit on my condo instead of a mortgage, meaning I have to pay off interest-only payments every month. At the moment I pay prime (2.25 I think?) on the borrowed amount per year. In my situation I then add a whole lot to that payment to eat away at the principle, but in yours you could just do the interest only payments which should be lower (I would think a lot lower, depends on the exact numbers). Obviously it's not normally advisable to make interest-only payments on your place, but if that's the way it's got to be, you could try that. No idea if it's hard to qualify for that kind of thing or not. I just went through a mortgage-broker.

[Mike Oxlong]

Originally Posted by Gundo

So last year I was diagnosed with bi-lateral testicular cancer and really only could work for 4 months of the year, long story short bills piled up abit for us. I was wondering if anyone knows anything about doing "interest only" payments on your Mortgage of if they may put the Mortgage on hold for a month or two so someone can play catch up.

Anyone have any insight?? Its kind of a gut check to have to do it but thanks to poor health in the last year and starting a new job Im low on options.

It depends on the lender but many of them will allow you to miss one payment penalty free per year. Beyond that you would have to discuss the situation with the lender and see if they could make an exception.

I know CMHC has a program to help people who are in a financial bind to help them catch up on their payments. Here's a link to the info:
http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/co/co_005.cfm
It doesn't really tell you a whole ton, but if you mortgage is insured by CMHC it looks like are at least willing to work with you. I believe Genworth has a similar program.

Lenders and insurers don't want to have to foreclose on anyone. It is in their best interest to help you get back on track as well.

I hope this helps a little bit. Really sorry to hear about your situation, I hope you are on your way back to perfect health and financially back on track soon.

[Mike Oxlong]

Another option I suppose would be to refinance. You could consolidate all of the bills that have piled up into a new mortgage and maybe extend the amortization a bit to reduce the payments. Once you are back on track financially you can increase the monthly payments to try and get caught back up on things.

There are lots of factors to consider but I can certainly see if it is worthwhile for you and run some numbers to let you know where you would be sitting after the refinance.

Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions I can answer that you don't want to share with the world.

[ken0042]

Yikes. BTW- "Cancer" would have been sufficient in that story. Hope things go better for you from here on in.

I wonder if something like a Manulife One product would be the way to go. I believe it works like a line of credit; so in theory you could just make interest payments.

[Gundo]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Yikes. BTW- "Cancer" would have been sufficient in that story. Hope things go better for you from here on in.

I wonder if something like a Manulife One product would be the way to go. I believe it works like a line of credit; so in theory you could just make interest payments.

I think that just a bit of leniency would be sufficient enough to catch up, I would think. We don't really want to do any kind of refinance or anything of that nature.

On a side note I know saying "Cancer" would have been sufficient but if I talk about my story its increases awareness just that little bit more for everyone. Testicular Cancer is one of the most wide spread and yet least talked about forms of Cancer.