Full and final settlement help thread

fatbelly

January2015 wrote: »

We wrote to the DCA managing our Hellfax OD account. We have previously offered F&Fs to be funded by family member of up to 25% of the balance and always the answer was a big fat NO However we wrote this time and offered 35% and said we had managed to scrape the funds together by selling some of stuff. Amazingly they wrote back and said they would accept F&F but they put forward a counter offer which was LESS than we had offered and we settled the debt at 22% of the balance. It was not a huge debt - about £1.3k but wow it was good to get it settled and for less than we had even offered.

You should be negotiating our Brexit deal.

latte55

Hi

I’ve had responses to some of my CCA requests.

2 from Link Financial have confirmed unenforceable.

2 from Robinson Way, still looking. Accounts on hold

1 from Cabot, still looking, want to continue with payment.

I have a few with original lenders so didn’t do CCA for them.

All are in DMP with S/C still being paid.

I need advice on next steps please. Should I cancel my DMP with S/C and write to all with F&F offers? Offer low with the unenforceable ones and maybe start at 25% for the others?

I really can’t deal with the stress of letters and phone calls if we ignore the U/E ones so I’d much rather agree settlement if possible.

If they don’t accept my offers, do I then just go self managed and offer token payment to the U/E ones?

Thank you all in advance

Lifeisforliving19

Not been around for ages, but just wanted to say, don't get disheartened as you will get your F&F's eventually. We have just finished paying off 2 this month, at a saving of over £4k. Been on the DMP since 2015, so it takes a while. But eventually they realise that you will never pay and the offers come floodign in!

January2015

latte55 wrote: »

Hi

I’ve had responses to some of my CCA requests.

2 from Link Financial have confirmed unenforceable.

2 from Robinson Way, still looking. Accounts on hold

1 from Cabot, still looking, want to continue with payment.

I have a few with original lenders so didn’t do CCA for them.

All are in DMP with S/C still being paid.

I need advice on next steps please. Should I cancel my DMP with S/C and write to all with F&F offers? Offer low with the unenforceable ones and maybe start at 25% for the others?

I really can’t deal with the stress of letters and phone calls if we ignore the U/E ones so I’d much rather agree settlement if possible.

If they don’t accept my offers, do I then just go self managed and offer token payment to the U/E ones?

Thank you all in advance

I had UE debt and I chose to settle it at 10% of the outstanding balance. However, you can just ignore those debts if you want to. If money is tight then put them to one side and forget about them. Concentrate on the enforceable debts. I do understand what you mean about not being able to cope with letters/calls etc - you could just write and advise as they have confirmed the debts are unenforceable you do not want to be contacted. They probably will still try occasionally though

Definitely CCA debts that are still with original creditors - you might as well check ALL debts. Do that asap

With all debts, my personal thoughts are if you are paying through a DMP with Stepchange and they are getting anything reasonable each month - why would they accept low offers. I would cancel stepchange DMP now and write and advise you are going self managed. Pay them a token payment for at least 6 months and then start negotiations for F&Fs.

You need to understand that you are in control. As long as you keep in contact (with the enforceable debts) and make some payment they are very unlikely to take you to court. You would have lots and lots of warnings before it ever got that far. I've been in my DMP for almost 5 years and have been paying very low amounts on huge debts. That's when creditors and DCAs become open to low F&Fs. I've never been threatened with legal action over any of my debts - other than the standard default letters from original creditors which they have to send anyway.

Good luck with it all :beer:

smithyv

Hello, i have been following this thread which is very useful, so thankyou.
I have just started in my third year of my DMP with Stepchange with a debt of 48K, i have paid 19.5K off in just over two years.
I have inherited some money 14K, and want to make settlement offers to my creditors - has anyone done this via Stepchange or is it best to do yourself?

NeverendingDMP

I think if you do it through stepchange they dont haggle for you where as you can if you did it yourself. I think they would split the 14 k pro rata between all your debts then offer that to see if they they say yes or no. I self manage so please wait for other people to respond to your question as well in case Im wrong. Im sure you have more flexibility if you negotiate yourself. Also you can do CCA requests to check if a debt is enforceable or not.

fatbelly

NeverendingDMP wrote: »

I think if you do it through stepchange they dont haggle for you where as you can if you did it yourself. I think they would split the 14 k pro rata between all your debts then offer that to see if they they say yes or no. I self manage so please wait for other people to respond to your question as well in case Im wrong. Im sure you have more flexibility if you negotiate yourself. Also you can do CCA requests to check if a debt is enforceable or not.

Seems a perfect answer to me.

smithyv

thanks Neverending - how do i do a CCA request?

Willing2Learn

smithyv wrote: »

thanks Neverending - how do i do a CCA request?

Send the letter linked below to your eligible creditors. Remember to include a £1 postal order with each request.

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/sampleletters/Pages/Information-about-your-agreement-under-the-Consumer-Credit-Act-(sole-name).aspx

MissDebtFreeWannabe

Hi all,

My partner has just received a F&F Settlement offer on one of his defaulted debts for 40%, he also received one a few weeks back on another debt, but he was unable to pay it. He is due to receive some monies soon, and I have one question - in around six months, we want to apply for a joint mortgage together (I have a very good credit rating) and he will be debt free by then - in terms of a mortgage application, should we make sure that ALL the debts are paid in full, or if we accept F&F Settlements on some of them (and therefore they are marked as 'partially settled') how much of an impact will this have on our mortgage application? FYI the defaults all occurred end of 2017/ beg 2018 and therefore a long way until the 6 year time limit to coming off the credit report.

The fact he has defaults is going to be bad enough, but being settled or partially settled - how much of a difference is this?? Any monies we save would be going towards a our deposit!

Thank you