I would be really grateful for some advice. Where can I look to try to establish whether some of the charges on my mortgage account are fair or unfair? One charge particularly stands out - £50 late payment penalty. If I miss my monthly payment by as little as one day, it incurs a £50 charge. Even worse, if I miss the month's payment altogether but pay the following month's on time, the payment is allocated against the older instalment, meaning that technically I am late on the current month's payment and another £50 is charged. And so it goes on. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I'd be ever so grateful.

Thanks pompey.

Baz, thanks for your reply. We have applied for tax credits and I now get £60 a week and my wife gets about £50. Also child credit of £50 a week, so that makes a total of roughly £255 per week including earnings. Gas & elect run at about £50 per week (this will of course go up in the winter), water about £35 per month, Council Tax nearly £200 a month, insurances over £100 a month (house, contents, car), so it is a real struggle. Can't even sell the house right now although there's probably no equity left in it anyway. Ain't life great?

Bit noervous as it's my first post here. I lost my job a few months back. I'm married with one child aged 12, big fat mortgage etc. I went to sign on and after all the interviews I got a letter saying I was entitled to £3.17 a week followed shortly by another one saying I was not entitled to anything but that I should keep signing on every two weeks to get my NI contributions - thats a £5 return train fare every fortnight. The reason they've stopped payments is that my wife earns £95 a week for 2 days, and that is apparently enough for a family of three to live off. Can anyone tell me if I can claim any other benefits and how to go about it? I have applied for Council Tax Benefit, had 2 interviews, exchanged 6 letters and they still want bank statements and loads of other documents. What about gas & electricity. We are being really frugal but it's working out at over £5 per day. Can we claim for a contribution to these? It seems to me that the system is deliberately loaded against honest people trying to survive when you read in the press about some family being paid thousands to live in a great big mansion. I am tearing my hair out and would really appreciate any help.