We are a team of lawyers, social workers and financial counsellors, working together with our clients to help resolve their legal, financial, emotional and health issues that cause and/or result from mortgage stress. We may provide advice or ongoing representation and support.
Read below on how we helped our client Zara:
Zara is a single mother of 8 young children living in the western suburbs of Melbourne. She came to Australia with her husband from South Sudan and speaks English as a second language. Her marriage ended due to family violence and her ex-husband is now in jail. As a result, Zara had fallen into significant debt; owing over $15,000 in arrears on her mortgage, $3,000 in arrears on council rates and $10,000 on a car loan. Zara also had personal credit card debts that she took out to support her children. Zara’s local Council referred her to Mortgage Stress Victoria when legal proceedings had been initiated by her bank and her house was in the process of being repossessed. Zara was told to go with her family to a homelessness service to seek crisis accommodation. The weight of this stress impacted Zara’s mental health and sadly, she tried to step out into traffic to end her suffering. Thankfully, she survived and recovered. At this time, Mortgage Stress Victoria successfully negotiated with the bank for a three month hold on her mortgage and we secured withdrawal of the court proceedings, preventing repossession of Zara’s home. We also negotiated a hardship arrangement for her car loan and council rates, to prevent further risk of repossession of the home. Mortgage Stress Victoria could help sustain this outcome through wrap around social work support for her mental health issues.
