More and more hard-up Northlanders are losing their homes through mortgagee sales.
In Kaitaia, where the trend is most evident, the He Korowai Trust has been dealing with up to three families a week seeking help to save their homes after falling behind in loan repayments by just $600 or less.
In Whangarei, Otangarei Trust budget adviser Cathie Tulloch said her caseload of families facing mortgagee sales had doubled this year.
And Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira said mortgagee sales were cropping up all over the North.
The Northland situation reflects an increase in mortgagee sales nationally. No formal statistics are kept, but the total number of mortgagee sales listed on the Trade Me and realestate.co.nz websites rose from 211 in March to 353 at the beginning of August, hitting 389 by late yesterday.
Northland housing and budget advisers approached by the Northern Advocate emphasised the need for people to seek help as soon as mortgage debts surfaced.
He Korowai Trust manager Ricky Houghton said if prompt action was not taken, repayment problems could quickly escalate. Mortgage arrears of just $300 could balloon as the bank imposed costs such as $600 for a valuation, $1800 for a property law notice and $3500 to market the property - pushing the debt up to more than $6000.
Mr Houghton said his trust had spent $15,000 in the past few weeks saving the homes of Far North families in financial distress.
Many of the mortgages held by the families were originally low interest Housing Corporation loans which the Government sold to Westpac in the 1990s, he said.
Westpac media relations manager Craig Dowling said the bank had around a dozen homes subject to action which could lead to a mortgagee sale, which he stressed was the bank's last resort.
Unpaid rates could be applied to mortgages and lead to mortgagee sale action, but this did not happen without district council attempts to contact the ratepayer.
He urged people in financial difficulties to communicate with their council and bank.
"We commend the He Korowai Trust for the work they are doing, because we know the housing issue in Northland is complex. They are working to be part of the solution and we want to contribute in a similar way," Mr Dowling said.
Green Party MP Sue Bradford said news of increasing mortgagee sales should be a wake-up call to the Government about the seriousness of the housing crisis.
"As families find it more difficult to cope with rising food, fuel and utilities costs, mortgage payments fall behind and people who have struggled for years to keep their home suddenly lose everything they've got," she said.
"The desperate situation for families in the Far North is compounded by the fact that it is so hard for tangata whenua to build houses on their own communally owned land."
* Mum knows that fear too well
EACH WEEK:
• $308 on mortgage
• $80 on groceries
• $20 on fuel
A $308 weekly mortgage payment takes the lion's share of the benefit on which solo parent Jade Cranch and her two children survive.
The 26-year-old Whangarei mum knows all too well the fear of losing her home - a mortgagee sale loomed when she and the children's father separated.
The pair bought the house in Otaika with her parents providing the deposit and his parents guaranteeing the loan.
Ms Cranch said the house would have had to be sold if her former partner had insisted on taking the 50 per cent he was entitled to.
Fortunately, he signed the dwelling over to her, but coping with the mortgage and other living costs on a benefit was tough.
A $79 weekly shared custody payment from Inland Revenue covered insurance, electricity, phone and other bills. Of the cash left after mortgage repayments took $308 out of her weekly $432 DPB, she had $20 to put fuel in her car, $80 to spend at the supermarket and a few dollars "spare" to deal with emergencies.
Ms Cranch said she bought essentials like bread, milk, cheese and fruit to get her children - daughter Azariah, 6, and son CJ, 2 - through each week.
She rarely bought meat. If she did, it was usually mince, of which she was "sick to the back teeth".
Clothes were bought in op shops or provided by the children's grandparents.
Otangarei Trust budget adviser Cathie Tulloch said the spiralling cost of food, fuel and interest rates was adding to pressure on low-income families, causing relationship splits and other problems - and, in the worst case, ending in mortgagee sales.
"It's cruel out there," she said.
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