My experiences so far of making full and final offers.

Hi, some of you may have read other posts of mine/ours (my wife and I both use the username karma police) and will know that she has just gone bankrupt. I'm the other half of the partnership, so I thought I'd just offer up a few snippets of my current situation in the hope that it will help others.
As background, between us we owed about £43K, :eek: More or less split 1/2 and 1/2, and 90% of it in one or other name, just £2K was joint.
For various reasons, going BR was not an option for me, but was for my wife, so she's gone bankrupt as mentioned before to the tune of about 19K.
That left me taking on the joint £2K as well as my own £22K.
Currently I'm out of work, and have been for about 8 months, all the creditors know that, and all payments stopped in October, since then there have been hundreds of phone calls, and letters, but as I was unable to pay, they got no where.
Due to the generosity of a relative, I have been offered a lifeline of an interest free £10K or so to be used to offer my creditors in order to pay them off in full and final settlement, and allow me to start life again.
So far here are the results:
Barclayloan, owed about £11K, offered £5K, they've turned it down, onto round 2.
A & L Credit card. (MBNA) Balance £6K, offered £2K, Accepted.:j
Natwest CC, Owed just over £2K, initially offered £700 that was turned down, then offered £900, that's been turned down, Onto round 3.
Barclaycard, offered £700 on a £1600 debt, turned that down but said would accept £800, so they're sorted. :j
Barclays curent account OD, debt £1800, was offered £700, turned that down, but accepted £900, so they're sorted. :j
Lastly A & L current account OD, debt £600, offered about £200 IIRC, not heard back from them yet.
So three down, three to go, and so far about £9.5K of debt, sorted for £3.7K.
:D:D

Overall I'm glad that we were pushed into a position of dealing with this, even if the reason for me stopping work (my mother in law's ill health) was very much unwanted.
Looking back we've paid approx £1000 a month for at least the last 5 years, just in repayments, that's £60K, and we ended up in more debt than we ever borrowed. Once you get to a certain point, it just doesn't work out anymore, debt just gets bigger and bigger.
Having to default on everything, and then move forwards from there has been very liberating. I can't wait to get the other three debts resolved, and then soon get back to work hopefully. The amount we'll owe my mother is small fry considering where we started, and it's interest free to boot, payable as and when we can afford it.:cool:
We're determined never to fall into the credit card trap again.