Help to save my house!

I really neeed some advice.

an old jewish saying says if you are ever going skimp out on anything never let it be your lawayer or your accountant. The fees you pay could mean the difference between keeping your house and losing it. Besides, if you are going to have to declare bunkrupsty anyway, what are a few legal fees?


Try to hedge out the currency risk by opening up a trading account or better yet through a broker who can calculate the futures exposure you will need. Enter into a few futures contracts to keep the payments the same regardless of what happens to the currency. The Fed has just annouced interest rates will be kept the same for the time being. With the Lehmans/Merril/ AIG debacle it is highly unlikely much investment will be going into American Capital markets (i.e. the same or lowered demand for dollars which essentially equates to a lower dollar price against other currencies, including the AUD).


Even if this is not the case, it is certainly not the time to be playing with currency risk given the state of the global economy. If you can afford payments at this exchange rate (even if barely) hedge out the remaining currnecy risk immediately to avoid stressing your wallet further, most importantly though, losing more sleep at night.


by contacting your bank manager you may be able to request a premium holiday where you only pay the interest on the loan off for say the next 12 months. you pay no capital off the loan but at least it gives you enough time to pull together some excess funds. You need to prove that you have hedged out the currency risk and still have cash flow aviable to pay off the loan.


Finnally you can access your super fund if taken out privately (as far as i know you cannot touch your MPF, but check HSBC website it does show conditions to liquidate your funds -i do not suggest this however, the loss to your retirement wealth as a result will be way more than you think due to compounding). Most supers allow exit after 2 years of premium payment but check your papers to find out the details of your specific policy and lockin. note that it is possible they may charge you a heavy penalty for taking out your funds although this is often small if you only withdraw a small proportion.


not sure if this helps but i suggest acting on this immediately, as in today.

This doesn't seem to make much sense. Can you be more specific:

1. Where is the house you bought? In Australia?

2. Which bank did you take the mortgage out with?

3. In which currency is the mortgage denominated?

4. Is the sale (and the mortgage) already complete?


If the answer to 4 above is yes, then I'm not sure on what basis the bank is demanding a 'top-up' payment. Generally, your mortgage, once it's in place, just ticks along with a certain repayment amount ever month or two weeks. How can the bank be demanding a top-up?


Also, if both the house you bought and the house you mortgaged are in Aus (you say the latter definitely is), then there's no currency matching issue at all.


Confused - need more info.

we have 2 houses both in Australia.

Sounds to me like you need good legal advice. Get a lawyer to take a detailed look at your mortgage agreement so you can understand better whether the bank is within its rights to demand this top-up payment or not.

My suggestion is .. The money they are asking for is simply a margin payment. You have a few options .. BAnkruptcy is not a smart one. I would suggest you convert you loan to aud as you are clearly not in a position to deal with the currency risks. So convert the loan back to aud and take your medicine on that. Either then sell the house or borrow from family. You need to be proactive and lawyers will only further suck money out of you. Take charge dont panic.. Work out what your current standing is where your priorities lie ie in which house and make decisions before someone makes the wrong decisions for you. Of course you never get something for nothing so with your 3 % interest rates cam the currency risk.. Advice is simplify your life as quick as you can

I suspect you need a good financial planner - maybe IPAC or some other Australian firm could help to confirm what to do now (you should pay by the hour). And the planner likely could recommend a good financially literate lawyer (don't get someone who has never done this before).


Use every contact you have to find someone good - i.e. Aussie banker, any accountant, any Australian, even a NZ'er (things are dire!).


You might just be lucky with the US govt massive spending as the AUD has gone up a fair bit already and might go up more - but who knows, that's the point. No one does, cause if they did they would be really rich.


Suggest you unwind this as needed - BUT BASED ON REAL ADVICE LOOKING AT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES. With Australian property at the highest in the world and everythign else crashing, personally I would sell immediately and take the medicine now. In 12 months you might just have saved your backs, but who really knows as you could be much worse off. You need to do immediate planning. And don't panic.


Be interested to hear back as to what you did.


GOOD LUCK.

we