XP - Desperately Need Help - No idea what to do!

Urgent_HELP_needed

I’m in a total mess and don’t know where to turn. I’ll jump straight into it if that’s okay. My wife suffered terribly from PND 3yrs ago, which resulted in her losing her job, she had been earning 25k. I had an accident and couldn’t work for a year and as I was self employed we effectively had no income. Instead of dealing with it we buried our head in the sand and things have got progressively worse until now when they are about to implode. We have around 35k worth of debts which are not being paid at the moment and haven’t been paid, or even acknowledged, for about 2 years. 28k ish in my wife’s name and 7.5k ish in mine.

We did own our own home but couldn’t afford to keep it so decided to move out and put it on the market to clear some debts. We moved into a house owned by my mother who agreed we wouldn’t pay rent until our house sold and then we would pay the back rent in a lump sum out of the equity. We moved in June 2007 and then the credit crunch hit and the house didn’t sell. It was repossessed in June 2008 so now we owe my mother a years back rent and have no way of paying it. She’s understandably very annoyed and has said we have until the end of August to sort it or we’re out on our ear. I have no idea what happens with repossession. What happens to the equity? We didn’t even know that it was imminent as we hadn’t changed our contact details and all correspondence was going to the old house. I stupidly wasn’t opening mail either, too scared. First I knew of it was when I went to the old house and the locks had been changed. Have no paperwork to do with the repossession as it was all inside and I couldn’t get it. They gave you two weeks to claim any possessions but that was already up by the time I found out.

I was self employed until last November and I’m way behind with my tax and NI payments, haven’t filed since 2005! My income was about 6.5k. Have no idea what to do but I’m very scared. We owe child tax credits 2.5k as I couldn’t provide income details so they reclaimed all payments. We now have 3 children under 4 and have never claimed for the youngest two even though they are now 1 as we have no way of paying what we owe. We claim no benefits, other than child benefit, and don’t know if we even can because of my tax and NI situation and also owing money to the CTC. I have been an employee since November and as sush have been paying tax and NI accordingly.

Our current SOA is here

My wages - £930 (monthly)
Child Benefits - £165 (4 weekly)

Total - £1095

Monthly Outgoings:

Rent - £425
Council Tax - £100
Gas - £59
Electric - £56
TV License - £12.75
Phone - £30 (2 PAYG mobiles)
Food -
Petrol - £80
Water Rates - £79
Debt Collection - £190

Total: £1031.75

Grim reading indeed! We have been using the £425 rent money to live on but now my mother wants paying so we’ll be down to £65 a month. Its obviously not possible to live on that so what do I do? We already meal plan, cook from scratch, sell things on forums/eBay, buy clothes 2nd hand, shop in Aldis/Lidls I don’t know how to cut down further. We only have mobiles as I work abroad for 4 days a week so need them to be contactable. The petrol is to work and back only. I am a named driver on my MIL motability car so have no other expenditures on it. I feel like my family would be better off without me at least them they could claim benefits! I've been told that bankruptcy might be our best option so have posted here to see what you think.

If you’ve got this far I congratulate you! If you can actually help/offer advice I *probably* love you.

DEBT_23

you have defo come to the right place. and BR is possably the best option. have you spoke to CAB for advice.
Is your name down on the council/housing !!! list? you will be a priority if your mother 'throws you out ' not a perfect soloution i know but cheaper rent !
there are people worse off than you. and i know at moment you may not agree..but there are.

And no your family wouldnt be better off without you. love is far more valuable than money.
I dont see my parents.. ( long story and not thru choice)
and id love a family that cared for me before anything else in the world.

Someone else more experianced will be along shortly to help

keep strong.

Urgent_HELP_needed

thank you for atking the time to reply. We are now registered with the local Housing associations and will ring the council list on Monday to hopefully join that. Haven't spoken to the CAB but will try and make an appointment next week.

december

Hi and welcome to the board,
I'm sure someone more experienced will be along to help in a bit My only piece of advice would be to check the entitledto website and see if you would be entitled to any additional support although I'm not sure how you would stand with that due to the repayments you have to make. I'm really sorry I can't be of any use but rest assured one of those with more knowledge will be along shortly

Take care
December

dalip

Right in my sig are a couple of debt charity numbers. NDL will tell you there and then what they reccomend but CCCS will book an appontment and as you can imagine they are busy. The same with your local CAB they are inundated with calls and appointments are about a 2 wk wait.

It does sound like bc is your best option and the negitive equity on your house can be included in you bc,as can any CT arrears,income tax arrears and you rent that you owe to your mum.

Once you have taken legal advice(and you need to do this as it is the one main questions both the judge and the OR ask)and they advise bc you need to ring your local court to see if they operate an appointment system,if so book both you and your wife in. Again some courts are so inundated it is taking until sept to get an appointment. The fees for bc are £495 each so you need to find that money from somewhere. If you are below a certain income(i think) or receiving certain benefits you may get £150 knocked off that per person.

It tends to be quiet at wkends here but there is usually someone here.



Sorry forget to say welcome and bravo on taking your head out of the sand and facing your problem,always the hardest step.

Any other questions just fire away no matter how silly you think they are,we have all been in your shoes at some point so we understand totally how you are feeling. I know you feel pretty desperate right now but this place is a sanctuary and we are such a lovely bunch of people,you will make friends for life here. Not the so called ones who dissapear when things get tough. DalipX

debt_doctor

Hi,

The first thing you must do is go to the CAB, and sort your benefits. My estimate on what you have said is that you are entitled to about £ 170 PER WEEK tax credits and some housing benefit even taking your tax credits in to account. Your tax credits will also be backdated for 3 months.

Because you owe tax credits they will reduce the amount you receive butonly at a rate that will not cause hardship.

Sort out your income first then start to look at your debts.

Best,

DD

Urgent_HELP_needed

debt_doctor wrote: »

Hi,

The first thing you must do is go to the CAB, and sort your benefits. My estimate on what you have said is that you are entitled to about £ 170 PER WEEK tax credits and some housing benefit even taking your tax credits in to account. Your tax credits will also be backdated for 3 months.

Because you owe tax credits they will reduce the amount you receive butonly at a rate that will not cause hardship.

Sort out your income first then start to look at your debts.

Best,

DD

thak you for taking the time to reply and you are right according to entitledto.com (don't know how accurate that is) we are entitled to £170.39 tax credits, £5.79 council tax benefit and £57.97 housing benefit. Strangely the housing benefit went up from £30 to £57.97 when I corrected my net income by upping it £5.

Scarlett.1974

debt_doctor wrote: »

Hi,

The first thing you must do is go to the CAB, and sort your benefits. My estimate on what you have said is that you are entitled to about £ 170 PER WEEK tax credits and some housing benefit even taking your tax credits in to account. Your tax credits will also be backdated for 3 months.

Because you owe tax credits they will reduce the amount you receive butonly at a rate that will not cause hardship.

Sort out your income first then start to look at your debts.

Best,

DD

I could not agree with DD more. You MUST get this sorted as a matter of priority...... yes, they will claim back the over-payment from your claim, but as DD says, at an amount that you can afford. Sorry to sound like a nag but please, PLEASE call them now, today, they're open until 8.00pm (I think).

Good luck

Scarlett.1974

Urgent_HELP_needed wrote: »

thak you for taking the time to reply and you are right according to entitledto.com (don't know how accurate that is) we are entitled to £170.39 tax credits, £5.79 council tax benefit and £57.97 housing benefit. Strangely the housing benefit went up from £30 to £57.97 when I corrected my net income by upping it £5.

Entitledto are pretty accurate I've always found

Do you have an official tenancy agreement in place with your mum? This might be tricky, with your LL being a relative - might be worth posting on the benefits board about this one, or maybe DD could advise?

Urgent_HELP_needed

Scarlett.1974 wrote: »

I could not agree with DD more. You MUST get this sorted as a matter of priority...... yes, they will claim back the over-payment from your claim, but as DD says, at an amount that you can afford. Sorry to sound like a nag but please, PLEASE call them now, today, they're open until 8.00pm (I think).

Good luck

We have contacted the ctc and the lady we spoke to was not sure if we'd be able to claim but said to try and see what happens. We've filled the form in and now we're waiting for some details from my employer (PAYE reference number) before it complete

Scarlett.1974

Urgent_HELP_needed wrote: »

We have contacted the ctc and the lady we spoke to was not sure if we'd be able to claim but said to try and see what happens. We've filled the form in and now we're waiting for some details from my employer (PAYE reference number) before it complete

I don't know too much about how tax credits work (does anyone really? do tax credits themselves know how they work?!) but I can't see why you shouldn't be able to claim what you're entitled to? I had a rather large overpayment from them from 2003 for £2k and was paying it back at a rate of £10 per month (was all I could afford)...... it NEVER effected my current/previous claims at all.