Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome advice

[kagey]

Hi, ;Hi1 ;Hi

I've just joined and would be grateful for some advice on our situation.

My husband and I have just short of £30,000 debt on credit cards, loans, store cards due to him being made redundant 3 times in the past 9 years and us using credit cards to live off during those periods.

We are now no longer able to meet the minimum payments and have been trying to arrange lower payments with our creditors since June. We originally contacted CCCS for advice, completed a budgetform with them online to find out how much we have available monthly and to work out pro rate amounts for our creditors.

We have written to all creditors but only 1 has accepted our proposal of a lower payment and frozen interest and charges.

Another one has agreed to accept the lower payment with no interest or charges for 3 months and will then review it.

I don't feel like we're getting anywhere with the other companies.

We have been making monthly payments of the lower amounts that we calculated pro rata by cheque to our creditors.

We have just over £200 available every month.

The creditors were ringing us all day every day at one point, we have now written to all of them and said we wish to correspond only in writing and at the moment they only ring infrequently, although I'm aware this may change.

So can anyone advise how to persuade them to accept our lower payments? We cannot borrow money from anyone to make full and final settlements but will obviously try to put away as much money as we can every month in order to save up enough to maybe do this at some point if recommended.

I suffer with depression and am finding the situation incredibly stressful.

Let me know if I need to post up more information.

Thank you very much for your help in advance.

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

Read my unbenforceable thread - see what you think.....

Welcome, nice to see you here....

[kagey]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

Thanks.

Do you mean your unenforceable diary? I'm not sure if that's relevant to me. All our cards are fairly recent as we've been swapping from one 0% balance transfer card to another for a while to try and avoid paying too much interest. We've also been making full min. monthly payments up until the end of June and since then have been offering lower payments every month.

So I think all our cards and loans are enforceable.

Do you know what other options we have?

Thanks.

[kagey]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

I just had a look at the Unenforceable forum and your thread.

I haven't requested credit agreements from our creditors as all our credit cards/loans are so recent, I would imagine the agreements will be ok.

The oldest I think is a card we took out about 2005 but we have borrowed money right up to quite recently, certainly in this year. One card was taken out in March this year I think. Others over the past couple of years. One loan is from autumn last year, one from 2007. I've probably had the store card for 5 years but again used it earlier this year.

Would you still recommend writing to our creditors, requesting a copy of the credit agreement? Is there a part of the forum with templates for such letters? (Sorry, I have just joined and am having a look round right now but haven't found everything yet.)

[MrsD]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

hi there and welcome

If your cards are pre-2007 they could be UE, it doesn't matter when you last spent on them, what matters is do they (the creditors) have enforceable agreements?

Have a good read around all the threads, loads of examples on here to help you.

[LooLoo]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

Hi

please do as Dopey and Nid have said but if you need any help wtih DMP I can try and help from my own personal experience

LL

[kagey]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

I just don't know what to do now as I've been following the advice I was given on another site and am getting nowhere. I don't know what is the best way to continue - should I stop paying and see what happens? I don't think I could cope with the stress of them taking us to court. What will happen if I just carry on making lower payments and ignore all their requests to call them and discuss matters.

Or should I be complaining to OFT or someone because they are not accepting my proposals? I have so far refused to complete their I&E forms - should I be doing this, are they more likely to accept my proposals if I do? Everything I read on other forums suggested not.

Although I have in the last week sent a very brief list of I&E to 2 of our creditors, i.e. total income, total expenditure, total debt, amount owed to creditor, pro rata percentage, amount pro rata.

However I suspect they won't be happy with this as the information they have requested is quite detailed. I filled in a budget form with CCCS so don't see why I have to supply all creditors with the details too.

[LooLoo]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

Can you let me know what debt you have and what creditors are involved and as said above when they were taken out

Please don't panic it can be sorted.

I am logging off soon but i will be back tomorrow.

If you dont want to post on the thread you can send me a pm


take care

LL

[LooLoo]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

Just about to reply to you

[MrsD]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

as Loo said, you need to tell us a bit more.
Generally creditors have no legal right to ask you for your personal details such as income, payslips etc, however the free charities always provide a simplified version to the creditors when they set up your DMP, so usually they have access to limited information. My DMP was with CCCS and I benefitted from this as I am sure it helped get interest stopped etc. However, there is no reason why you can't do this yourself like Loo. The main thing to bear in mind is that the creditors like to see that all is fair, ie they are getting a fair chunk of the available income and doing a limited I&E is probably the easiest way to do this.
If you are going to look at UE, everything is different, so you need to read through and come to a decision, Niddy can tell you more if you provide all of the necessary detail, creditor, balance, last paid, was it full payment or reduced, and is it defaulted or not, have a look at some of the other diaries for the idea, here is mine viewtopic.php?f=49&t=43, have a read, lots of meat on there, we have 22 creditors!!!!

[LooLoo]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

Sorry I thought it would be best to reply on here so others know my suggestions without saying anything too personal I hope that is ok

Hi there

first thing please please try not to worry - yep I know easier said than done.

If you don't mind I would like to pass you message on to a couple of other people who know much more then me.

Can I ask have you sought advice via CAB or National Debtline. If you read my thread (as don’t want to keep going over old ground you can see how and why I came to my decision, before this site existed I might add!!)

I did in the end have to talk on the phone to some of the companies but my payments were all accepted for periods of 3/6 months and then they were reviewed and they all extended up to a year (which is nearly up with some so maybe more fun and games)

Your options would be DMP/IVA (I really do not know about IVA's)/BR or go down the UE route. With all these options we can help here.

With you permission I would like to forward your email on with your full debt details to some other people who can advise you about UE and BR as I do not really have enough knowledge of either.

I am more than happy to help and give support about DMP’s as I am in the same situation (not an expert by any means) and I can tell you how I am getting on and I am not getting any phone calls (she says rapidly looking round to touch wood).

Please also look at the UE and BR threads and I will ask a couple of people to look at your situation.

In the end it has to be your decision which route you would like to take but I can just assure you, there is plenty of help and support here from many people.

Looloo

[kagey]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

First of all, thanks for the support everyone and for taking the time to read through my details, Looloo.

I was a bit wary of putting the companies and amount of debt on here for all to see as I have been warned before that the loan companies and cc companies trawl these sort of forums checking for names and figures so that they can follow the discussions.

However, Looloo I don't mind you sharing the details with others who can help as the figures are approximate. Thanks for that.

I contacted CCCS online and filled in their budget form online and they advised me how much I had available to divide between my creditors and how to work out a pro rata payment for them.

My husband and I were discussing last night that we will go to see the CAB and see what they say.

I would be interested to know what happens to our house and cars if we follow the IVA or BR route - we have a large mortgage over another 25 years so would struggle to remortgage now to free up some equity, as I don't think the mortgage lenders would allow that and I think our credit rating is ruined anyway so we wouldn't be able to remortgage would we? My husband's car is bought through HP and he needs it for work as we live in a village with poor public transport and also he covers a large area in his work, so needs to travel around a lot of the time. I have a 7 year old small car which I use to take my daughter to sport, drama, music etc. as we live in a village and can't get to these places without a car. This car was bought with a credit card.

We spend no money on eating out, going out, buying anything apart from essential clothes (my daughter had grown out of all her winter clothes, so had to buy new jeans and tops for her last month!)

I just want to find the least stressful way of getting a grip on the whole thing. I know we have to pay everything back and that is fine, but I don't want to worry about it every day of my life for the next 20 years or so and also I don't want to be living like this for the next 20 years with no holidays, no meals out for celebrations etc. I'm worried what will happen if the car breaks down, what if mortgage interest rates go up and we can't get a fixed rate because of our credit rating. I hate the thought of debt collectors visiting the house or having to go to court, I just want to quietly pay it off as soon as possible but at a rate that isn't forcing us into further debt each month.

I will read through the threads on here that seem relevant and find out as much as I can.

Another question: we have had a letter from one company, advising they can't deal with us in writing as they are a telephone based company and we must ring them. I am worried that if we do they will try to pressure us into an agreement, I'm useless on the phone and use it as little as possible, my husband is prepared to make the phone call if he can ring in the evening, but is worried also that they will push for a payment.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and for your advice.

[MrsD]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

there is no rush, so relax and read through all the threads. Don't phone the company, just send the letter here viewtopic.php?p=178#p178, they must deal in writing if you ask them, otherwise ignore the phone calls until you are sorted out. You are perfectly entitled to do this, they only require to have one method of contacting you and that should be by letter. I understand totally what you are saying, try to relax and honestly try not to worry, we will get it sorted, there is always an answer, we just have to find it for you.

take care

[LooLoo]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

Hi Kagey

Honestly there is no rush as Dopey has said - I will forward you details to a couple of people and ask them to stop off on your thread.

Cab is a good starting point.

Not sure about that "telephone" based company - hopefully someone else will.

the main thing is any little question you can think of just ask away not matter how small you think it is.

x

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Hi, new here, trying to sort out a DMP, would welcome ad

I've seen the pm, as forwarded by sunny and pretty much said the same. You need to look at an iva if you have the available income, your house/cars etc are all safe.

In the meantime get yourself signed up to a dmp and get them negotiating reduced payments for the moment.

Bankruptcy and/or unenforceability ain't an option here.

Good luck, just get an iva sorted.