A recent visitor to Money Watch found the site through the following search term on Google:
“can you stop paying your mortgage if house is for sale”
There’s a simple answer to this question: NO!
There are very few occasions when you can actually stop paying your mortgage, a couple I can think of are
a) when you’ve paid it off (maybe in 15 odd years, if I’m lucky)
b) when you’re taking a mortgage holiday which you’ve arranged with your lender.
Apart from that, there probably aren’t many other reasons you can stop paying your mortgage, unless you can think of any?
The page this person would have visited from that search term was my post on 7 tips for those struggling to pay their mortgage, and whether or not they were having problems paying their mortgage or were just curious about this having put their house on the market, I thought it was worth linking to that post once again, as it may be of use.
The key point from the article that I would stress again is that you should definitely not bury your head in the sand when it comes to mortgage problems (and money problems in general, actually) – the moment you sense you might not be able to pay, get on the phone to your lender and see if they can help.
The Government has been working with mortgage lenders to try and make them more sympathetic to borrowers in these difficult times, and there are options available which might make things easier for you, at least in the short term. By not paying, there’s a chance you could get yourself into very serious difficulties and could eventually lose your home.