Belfast firm gets official mark to help people with mortgage debt
We are delighted to be featured in today’s business section of the Belfast Telegraph. We’ve worked hard to achieve authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority allowing us to provide regulated services throughout Ireland and the UK.
Belfast firm gets official mark to help people with mortgage debt
Official status has been awarded to a Belfast financial firm to help people in property debt.
Property Debt NI has announced it is now offering regulated services throughout the UK and Ireland.
The company, an arm of HN Consultants, has secured regulation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to provide debt adjusting and debt counselling services, specifically, in relation to mortgage products.
Directors Heather Macartney and Natasha McGurk have combined years of expertise in the financial services sector.
They formed the company after meeting and working together at another property debt firm.
Heather worked in the insolvency field for more than 20 years, specialising in personal insolvencies including bankruptcy, while Natasha was employed by HSBC Bank to deliver training in banking protocols.
“We have worked closely with the FCA for a number of months to ensure our proposed services and procedures meet with the FCA’s strict guidelines,” said director Natasha McGurk.
Achieving this regulation is a huge success for the business which is now in its second year of trading.
“The move to official regulation was the result of the high number of properties still in negative equity throughout Ireland and the UK from the 2008 financial crash, the regulation gives clients the peace of mind and security of dealing with a regulated firm,” said Heather Macartney, Director.
Negative equity is still causing burdens of unmanageable debt for former and current homeowners and investors.
The economy is in a precarious position and it will likely take some years before we see full recovery. Many people are going into these uncertain times still grappling with negative equity and property debt and don’t know where to turn.
“For those who bought their first home 12 years ago, they might have since married and had children, or had to relocate and find maintaining a negative equity property is simply unaffordable.
“We provide a service whereby we engage in mediation between the property owner and lender to seek a resolution to the mortgage and disposal of the negative equity property.
“We have successfully negotiated with mortgage providers for many years resulting in considerable amounts of property debt being written off. For families and those in or close to retirement this relieves a huge burden allowing people to move forward with their lives. This too is the case for many property investors and landlords.
“We also are seeing more and more people with interest only mortgage coming to an end with no repayment vehicle in place. This is serious and many face the daunting prospect of being forced to sell their home to discharge the mortgage. We can help with this too, we have successfully negotiated on behalf of many clients over the years resulting in mortgage term extensions”, said Natasha McGurk, Director
“For new clients we always recommend our case review this allows us to carry out a full review of the clients position and to advise them on the options available specific to their circumstances”, she said.
Debt affects people in many ways and can cause relationships to breakdown and considerable stress and anxiety.
“We are delighted to achieve our regulation award and urge people who are struggling to contact us. The first initial consultation is totally free”, Heather Macartney, Director
There are only a handful of regulated firms in Northern Ireland who provide these services.
www.propertydebtni.co.uk Tel 028 9600 9621, 411 Lisburn Road, Belfast, BT9 7EW