Scared

wheretheresawill

In your SOA you have nothing for food. The £100 rent do you not get housing benefit. What about gas/electric/water etc or does your dad pay for these. On one of your loans the monthly payment is same as loan amount. What is £100 entertainment for? that way too much for socialising if youare only on incapacity benefit

wheretheresawill

Also £60 for travel is a lot if you are not working. Can you not do one or two trips out a week and consolidate your journeys.

Ames

You can't get housing benefit if you live with family.

Burv_2

I don't pay for food at home.
My 'rent' is house-keeping. I don't pay any bills on top of that.
My loan was originally for £10000. I have written it like that because the bank want the full amount. There is no monthly payment anymore.
The £100 entertainment is split between watching the football and spending time with my girlfriend.

peb

Hiya

UNfortunatley neither CCCS nor Payplan will help you if you are on benefits - I went through this with a friend in a similar situation a year ago (that's why I joined!)

There may be a local charity who can assist - my friend got help through CAP - Christians Against Poverty - and some CABs are great; others not so good.

Are you ever going to be able to work again? If so it may be worht going down the token payment route until you can properly repay the debts. if not and the liklihood is that you never will be able to repay the debts then Bankruptcy is a possibility - have a look on the sub board.

Good luck

Aylana

If CCCS and Payplan won't help then you can set up your own DMP. I think National Debtline have template letters to send to all your creditors to set up pro rata payments. It will affect your credit rating but that seems like that is happening anyway. Quite a few people on here do there own DMP so have a search round.

It will probably be a good idea to see if you can cut down your entertainment spending though, it is quite a lot. More than you can afford at the moment. Have a look round the forums for ideas for cheap entertainment. For example I got free cinema tickets this week through the cinema codes thread and some more for next week. You can't get better than free!

lauzjp

I agree with Aylana - even if the companies do take you to court - first thing you do when you get there - is ask to see the citizen's advice bureau adviser that is typically present, especially during debt hearings. Then, as Aylana says - they will ask you for the info you have on the form you've already got, and present it to your debtors, and prove that you cannot make the required payments, and they have to accept a reduced payment from you. Especially that you are on benefits; it can go down to silly amounts like a pound a week. Of course, this is not going to get your debt to go down very quickly, so you do need to contact cccs or somesuch.

CCCS advised that at 23 you are unlikely to be granted bankrupcy as being so young - companies would argue that you've got many years of employability in you yet! CCCS will advise you whether you've got an income or not; it's handy to have a statement of affairs so you can send copies to creditors, and as soon as you say 'I'm with CCCS' / quote your client reference number - things will calm down. It might not stop, but it will get better.

Burv_2

I've got another letter now. This one differs slightly from the last letter in that, while it says (yet again) that I may be taken to court if I don't make payments, this time the debt recovery people have resorted to making things up. The paragraph of interest reads:

"...You have made several arrangements to repay this debt, which you have failed to honour, the last being on 02 August 2008 for the sum of £50.00.

TAKE NOTICE that if you fail to repay the arrears on the arrangements you have made of £100.00 by 26 September 2008 Court proceedings may be issued against you for £12389.67 plus further costs that will be added..."

The did ask me to pay £50 when I spoke to them previously, but I refused as I didn't have it. I certainly didn't agree to anything. I haven't got it now, nor a further £50.

...

I'm really struggling with this. I have not been able to get myself on a computer since my last post here, even though I desperately need help. I feel like I'm being swallowed by this debt because I really don't have the energy to help myself.

Aylana

Have you spoken to National Debtline yet? www.nationaldebtline.co.uk Have a good look through the website if you haven't already. There are template letters that you can use on there to send to offer smaller amounts of payments or token payments. Then give them a ring on Monday. I think you will feel much better if you have a good chat to someone.

GeorgeUK

Might also be worth posting a thread on the bankruptcy board.

They may be able to advise on that area if this is the only option you have left available to you.