Financial Hardship – Home Loan Options (Updated 29th March)
With the Covid-19 Pandemic, many people are experiencing difficult times and uncertainty. This can include concerns around job security and accordingly the ability to continue to meet your home loan repayments during this time.
The following is meant as a general guide as to your home loan options. Clearly there is no guidance as to how long or how severely Covid-19 will impact us. Every person’s situation (and bank) is different so if you have specific questions, please contact us.
The banks have now followed the governments directive on the 24th March to offer borrowers a support package. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been affected by the economic disruption from COVID-19.
What are my Home Loan options?
- Change your repayments
If you are paying more than the minimum amount, you can reduce your repayments back to the minimum amount immediately. This can usually be done through Internet Banking. Remember, there may be a cost if you later decide to increase these repayments during the fixed rate period.
- Interest-only period
This may be available temporarily where you can still show that you can service your home loan on a reduced household income. A full application will be required and accompanying documentation to support this request will also be required. Not all Banks are offering this option as yet.
- Mortgage repayment holiday
This may be available for customers needing to take a break from your home loan repayments for a period of up to 3 months. The Bank will continue to charge interest during this period but will defer the payments (and interest) to the end of the holiday. Ultimately this adds an additional cost to the home loan but the short term cash flow benefit may assist. Importantly repayment holidays are generally for 90 days only so you need to consider whether now is the time to apply or not.
4. Mortgage repayment deferral (New, as per government announcement)
A Mortgage Payment Deferral allows you to take a break from making your contractual mortgage payment for up to six months. Interest will continue to be charged and will be added to your loan at each payment date.
Please note that you’ll end up paying more over the life of the loan and you may face either increased future payments or a longer loan term, at the end of the payment deferral period.
Insurance
If you have Mortgage Protection, Income Protection or Business Interruption Insurance then you should discuss this with your Insurance Broker.
We believe the Banks will need to be supportive during these times and we understand that they may be working on a Covid-19 customer assistance package at present.
From now on we at Eightfold will be working from home. We are also aware that the Banks are enacting their Back Up Plans which will also require some, if not all staff to work remotely. This will have a direct impact on turnaround times and we ask that you please be patient and bear with us during this time.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. We’re here to help,
from the team at Eightfold.