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My name is Rosie and I am 28 years old. In 2020 I had to make the decision to stop paying my joint mortgage. This was because I was experiencing domestic abuse and had no access to the property. The other party was refusing to pay, sell or leave.

When I reached out to my mortgage provider, who is a high street bank, they advised me that I was liable to pay and there was nothing they could do to help me. I had informed them that domestic abuse had taken place but at that time, it did not make much difference.

Once I stopped paying my mortgage, something I let them know about prior to the first missed payment, I was bombarded with calls. The people on the call would ask me why I was not paying my mortgage, I would have to constantly repeat my story and they would promise to put a note on the system. They would also ask my permission to put a vulnerable customer flag on the account, but they never did this. At one stage, when I asked them to read the notes they would advise me that I needed to tell them in ‘my own words’.

Shortly after, I was finally transferred to a vulnerability team. I thought this would mean that I would be looked after properly. They asked me for evidence of domestic abuse, which I was happy to provide, I spoke to the same person every week when I called up for an update, and I felt I was in a better position. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The individual I was always speaking to on the phone told me that my repossession was going ahead and everything would be sorted soon. After about a month I was advised this was not the case and everything was on hold. This was awful news for me as I really wanted this repossession to go through. Every month fees were being applied and my credit score was being lowered, I was getting further into debt and my future credit opportunities were shrinking.

It took nearly 2 years to get a repossession date, but finally in June 2022 my time came! Unfortunately, a week before I did receive a call from a department within the mortgage company asking me if I was paying off the debt to stop the repossession. Safe to say I made a complaint.

My property has been repossessed, I am near the end of my journey. I have been advised that I will be debt free, but I will not hold my breath after the promises they have told me before.

I turned my negative experience into a positive one and came up with the idea for ‘a Fairer Financial Future for Sufferers and Survivors of Domestic Abuse’, winning a worldwide competition and implementing changes in the banking sector.

This is something extremely important, so people like myself, can rebuild their lives.