Support for customers experiencing financial difficulties

We understand that being able to manage your money can impact every aspect of your life. If you’re struggling, we could help you take control of your finances.

Our financial support team are here to see how they could help you meet your mortgage repayments. If you make us aware of any problems you’re facing, we’ll be able to talk you through your available options.

What to do if you’re experiencing financial difficulties

If you’re worried about meeting your mortgage or loan repayments, now or in the near future, we’re here to help you. We’ll work with you to provide support that’s tailored to your individual circumstances and based on what you can afford to pay. Your credit score will not be impacted by contacting us to find out what options are available.

If you want to talk to someone please call our financial support team as soon as possible on 01634 838976, they’re available between 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday. You may also find it useful to visit the MoneyHelper or UK Finance websites for out-of-hours assistance. In addition, we’ve also listed some free third party resources at the foot of the page.

If you’re concerned about your ability to make future mortgage payments, either as a residential borrower or as a buy to let borrower whose tenant hasn’t paid, we may be able to consider making some changes to your mortgage account for a short period of time to help you manage your payments.

It’s important to remember that if we’re able to agree a temporary change to your mortgage payments, the amount unpaid will still be owed when the change comes to an end. If you pay less than the interest due your mortgage balance will increase, as will the amount of interest you pay over the remaining term of the mortgage. We’ll also need to report the arrangement to the credit reference agencies, which could affect your ability to borrow money in the future.

Information we’ll need

To help us consider what support we can give you, we’ll need a full understanding of your current income and expenditure.

We’ve worked alongside Paylink Solutions to create an online income and expenditure form for residential borrowers or buy to let borrowers who have up to and including three rental properties.

Completing this form will allow us to assess the information before we call you to discuss your options. We aim to deal with all requests within five working days.

If you’re a buy to let borrower with four or more rental properties call our financial support team on 01634 838976 instead.

If we’re unable to offer assistance, our team will provide guidance on what steps you need to take and may suggest that you seek independent financial advice. We cannot offer advice about debts you hold with other organisations. In such instances, you should speak to the organisation involved and/or approach an independent free debt advice service. Contact details for some of these services are listed below. There are also a number of self-help tools, money guidance sites or debt advice options which are available to you at the foot of this page.

Additional help and support

Below are some additional links to debt advice organisations where free advice and support is available.

Financial support charities

• Citizens Advice
• PayPlan
• StepChange
• National Debtline

Personal advice websites

• Money Saving Expert
• Gingerbread - advice for single parent families
• Mumsnet
• Netmums
• Domestic Abuse Support
• UK Finance

Credit reference agencies

• Equifax
• Experian
• TransUnion

Have you heard about PayPlan?

PayPlan is an organisation that offers free, simple, independent debt advice to anyone who needs it. Their mission is to help people become debt-free through clear, honest advice and debt solutions that work.

They’ll show you the different debt solutions available for your circumstances so you know what your options are, and how each one could help you. They could set up a debt solution that fixes your situation, lowers your repayments and gives you the chance to move forward with your life.

For debt advice you can trust or a solution straight away, their help is free to everyone, with no obligations, strings attached or hidden costs.

To improve your relationship with money, PayPlan have resources available such as a list of organisations to support your mental health, as well as offering tools to help you organise your finances.

They could help you with:

• Taking the stress away from debt
• Looking after your wellbeing
• Reducing your spending
• Working out your budget
• Setting your financial goals

Budget planning

Don’t know where to start? If you’d like to improve your finances, it could help to look at the bigger picture and create a budget planner showing all of your incoming and outgoing finance.

Find the budget planner that works for you:

• MoneyHelper
• Citizens Advice
• Payplan - excel spreadsheet and printable planner available

Once you have your budget, you can prioritise your important bills or debts and also spot where you could make your savings.

Reduce your spending

Even if you’re not facing financial difficulties there are ways to save money and we’ve listed some of the things that could help you save.

Top tips:

• Review subscriptions on a regular basis to see if you could get a better deal on your TV, broadband, mobile or energy bill before the end of your contract.
• Set up automatic payments in order to avoid potential late fees.
• If you drive, try walking or cycling more. As well as saving you money, it could help you get healthier without a gym membership.
• When you get unexpected cash, try to do one thing with it that saves money in the long run

Food and drink:

• If you enjoy a coffee, check out each store’s loyalty scheme. You can sometimes get bonus points from bringing a reusable cup – earning you a free drink faster.
• Try your local market instead of the supermarket, if they’ve got reduced overheads you could save more money.
• If you do go to the supermarket try only going once a week to help avoid buying more. Buy own-brand food, and go around 7pm to purchase reduced-to-clear items that could be frozen to eat later. It may also help to make a list before you go to keep you from buying items on impulse
• Create a meal planner to avoid food waste.
• Try growing your own vegetables. As meat is more expensive, you could experiment with a variety of vegetarian meals you enjoy too.
• Prepare lunch before work instead of going out to eat.

Leisure:

• Book your holidays in advance and shop around to find the best price.
• You could buy clothing, jewellery or home decor second hand - and it helps to recycle.
• Before you buy something, try checking for vouchers first.
• Explore free resources such as museums or borrow books from your local library instead of buying them.

Energy:

• Turning down your thermostat by just one degree could make a big difference to the amount of energy you use and could cut your heating bills by up to 10%.¹
• Unplugging or switching off televisions, computers and video games consoles at the power switch when not in use could save you up to £70 a year.²
• Consider using a shower timer. Using the shower for four minutes or under could save up to £95 per year.³
• Washing clothes at a lower temperature could save you up to £40 a year. Modern washing machines can clean clothes effectively at lower temperatures and turning down the dial could help you get three cycles instead of two using the same amount of energy.²
• Asking your energy supplier to install a smart meter will show you exactly how much energy your appliances are using and help you gauge the overall energy consumption of your home.

¹ Turn down one degree (wwf.org.uk)
² Energy saving tips to save money - Help for Households
³ 10 Ways To Save Money On Gas & Electricity Energy Bills - Which?