Nothing to do with me or hubby but his brother and sister in law. 

Like most people, when you finally get the nod for your iva being approved, you check the iva register.  We did, and found out a little more information then intended.  Hubbys brother and sister-in-law have an iva.  Obviously his brother has the same surname and as I never put in his first initial, it brought their names up too.  They started their iva a 8 months before we did but at the time we didnt realise they were struggling.  Now though, things add up, ie suddenly changing bank accounts, not having a credit card so borrowing ours to register for some services etc etc.  They have never told us they have an iva.  Then again, we never told them.  His brother has always maintained they took out a loan to pay off all their debts and how their debt would be cleared within 5 years!

This in itself is nothing new.  We told the same story to some people!  However, their iva is still ongoing, they have another 6 months to go.  Again, nothing wrong with that.  BUT…. they have recently told us that they are planning on buying a house (end of this year of course) but what astounds me how much of a mortgage they want to get.  It would mean monthly payments of £1600.  Well, at the moment anyway, based on 7% interest rate.  Also, they want to buy a new car (on finance!) for £6000 and a motorbike for £2000.   Not only that, but they have already put down a deposit (£1,000) borrowed from family for their new house that will be ready this time next year!! 

 There is obviously nothing wrong with wanting to do this and I do wish them and hope that everyting works out for them but it is just so frightening on how much they want to spend and so quickly.  It makes me shudder to think they are doing this without giving themselves breathing space after the iva has concluded.  We would love to buy our own house but its been 6 months since hubbys F&F settlement and we are still enjoying this time without any kind of debt hanging over us (apart from paying back MIL of course).  We have looked into buying a house and contacted Welshboy (recommended by Lesley and of course this site) but that was to sound out our options and if it was any way feasible for us to be able to afford a mortgage.  We have no definite plans and most likely, given the housing market at the moment, wont get a mortgage for a year or two anyway.  We have yet to hear back from him but I know that Melanie posted to say his dad passed away recently so I am certainly not going to be hassling him for a reply.  I know that a search has been done on our credit files as part of this (not good reading) but I was honest with Tony and he is aware that we are still having problems with one of hubbys creditors (default registered).  You might be thinking how can we get a deposit together……. hubby being in the armed forces means that he will get some help with that (approximately £8000) to help with all the fees and stamp duty etc.  Also there are a couple of schemes in place to help with deposits or grants as they call them. 

We have just found out however, one of the schemes is no good because apparently the company you go through arranges the mortgage as part of the deal and they only use high street banks, ie Abbey, Barclays etc so that counts us out.  Pity they dont put that little bit of important information on their forms etc.  Still waiting on the other one but it probably is too good to be true.  Their grants range from 8 to 15% of the purchase price depending on the locations etc etc.  We are in no hurry though so whenever it happens, it happens, if it does happen that is!!

Just wanted to say thank you to Andy and the team for voting me runner up in the blog of the Month!!  I am gobsmacked!  I nearly cried when I read the email.  I have never done a blog before and nearly gave up with it because I was having problems setting one up but Lesley as I can call her now (isthereanend!) gave me all the help that I needed.  Cant believe though that I came runner up to Lesley though!!  I even msn’d her the day I got the email from Andy to let her know and congratulate her as I thought she would have got the Blog of the Month.  She thought she didnt because she hadnt received an email.  She finally realised (what I had already known deep down) was that she did in fact receive an email but it arrived in her junk folder!!  I dont mind coming second to Lesley really.  She really deserves it after everything she has been through.  I did try and persuade her that we should put our vouchers together and share them out but she wasnt having any of it!!  If you dont ask, you dont get!!  Spent my vouchers the day they arrived!