Full and final settlement help thread

DBB_22

First off I want to thank onamissionEU and sunnydaysahead. I haven't felt so optimistic in years!

timetogetrid - there are far mor experienced and smarter posters here than me. However, it seems to me that you might want approach your creditors outside of the DMP. That way you could at least settle some of the debts. It's not ideal and I know you're like me in that you just want it all to end. But it really strikes me that having 3 settled accounts is better than having none. If the others won't accept that's when I'd approach the other 3 outside of the DMP - offering the same amounts (as you've now shown your hand).

sunnydaysahead_2

Hi Timetogetrid2012,
When we approached our creditors with settlement offers, when accepted they gave us 21 days to pay. In our case dealing with 11 different creditors :mad: we could not pay any creditors until we knew all would accept, so we asked our DMP provider to explain the situation to our creditors then extended the time limit to pay. Why not try this ? We could not pay any creditors until we knew all would accept. We found Barclays very helpful. I can give you the telephone number of the department we dealt with if this would help ? Just let me know.

onamissionEU

I think that when in a DMP you need to treat ALL your creditors equally - otherwise creditors who did not get preferential treatment may cancel your DMP and take you to court etc. Check this as I am not 100% up on DMP's as I never used one.

I guess the whole situation depends on your personal circumstances. If you really have nothing to lose (no house with equity, shares etc) then they can not take it from you! If you have assets I would be wary about ditching any DMP without taking advice (try cccs or cab) - so speaking with your DMP and asking them to help agreeing a !!!!!! with all creditors would be the way to go (I would advise this as your FIRST step anyway).
If this does not work out, you may wish to deal with individual creditors yourself and make the !!!!!!... Getting rid of any debt, especially at a reduced rate can only be a good thing! You may also find that once some debts are settled, other cerditors will be more open to negotiation - afterall, they just want their money back and usually a part of it is better than nothing!

Stay positive and remember: ANY funds you are using to make !!!!!! offers are from a THIRD PARTY... If they know/think the money is yours (ie redundency payment etc, they will want ALL OF IT... If the money is not "yours" they can not take it!)

DBB_22

Ok,

Here's my plan.

One more payment via Spectrum will take me to a total owed of £7505. I worked out how much I owed each creditor as a percentage of the total debt. I can raise £4,000 by the end of next month. So I worked out what I should offer to each based on their percentage of my overall debt. For some odd reason it looks like I'm offering a 53.29 percentage to each. I'd be VERY disappointed if they all didn't accept based on what I've read n this thread.

Santander/Equidebt
Owed: 2275.6
Pct of Total Debt: 30.31
Offer: 1212.4
Pct of Owed 53.29

HSBC Card/Pmnt Svcs Bureau
Owed: 985.96
Pct of Total Debt: 13.13
Offer: 525.2
Pct of Owed: 53.27

HSBC Loan/Cabot
Owed: 2471
Pct of Total Debt: 32.92
Offer: 1316.7
Pct of Owed: 53.29

MBNA
Owed: 1173.5
Pct of Total Debt: 23.63
Offer: 945
Pct of Owed: 53.29


Now is it worth even asking Spectrum to facilitate this for me or should I just go via CCS or another 3rd Party (does my wife count as a 3rd Party?).

I'd be interested to see what you guys think.

And again thanks everyone for making my mind less foggy!!

onamissionEU

53% is a lot to be offering - especially as an opening offer.

IF you are going to ask your DMP to contact and broker this "deal" I would tell tham that you you have a total of 2500 pounds available from a family member to clear your debts. This still equates to around 33%. You can always increase your offer if need be.

IF you go it alone (I would try the DMP way first - assuming you are in a free DMP) then offer 25% to start with. If you offer 50% they will likely counter with 80% and then you have no room left to improve your offer.

REMEMBER, this is a game and they are going to try and get as much out of you as possible. It is also likely to be a long process UNLESS the debts are several years old receiving only token payments for an extended period of time.

Put is this way, if currently they are not expecting the debt to be cleared or expect it to take many years at current payments they will be receptive to lesser offers. If the debt will likely be cleared within 1-3 years through the DMP they will likely want more for a settlement - why accept less when the likelyhood of getting ALL of their money back relativly quickly is pretty high!

3431Anna

Hi I'm not sure if i am posting this in the right place, but could anyone tell me if to do full and final settlements do you have to setle all of your accounts or can some just stay in the DMP many thanks

DBB_22

onamissionEU wrote: »

53% is a lot to be offering - especially as an opening offer.


Put is this way, if currently they are not expecting the debt to be cleared or expect it to take many years at current payments they will be receptive to lesser offers. If the debt will likely be cleared within 1-3 years through the DMP they will likely want more for a settlement - why accept less when the likelyhood of getting ALL of their money back relativly quickly is pretty high!

Hi again onamissionEU,

I'm 5.5 years into the DMP. Paying £500 pcm to cover all the debts. It'll take me about 18 months to clear them all at this rate. So I'm a bit unsure. I'm ready though...I can see me wading in shortly! Oh and my DMP is a fee paying one - which is whjy it's getting ditched!

onamissionEU

DBB_22 wrote: »

Hi again onamissionEU,

I'm 5.5 years into the DMP. Paying £500 pcm to cover all the debts. It'll take me about 18 months to clear them all at this rate. So I'm a bit unsure. I'm ready though...I can see me wading in shortly! Oh and my DMP is a fee paying one - which is whjy it's getting ditched!

I don't want to pee on your fireworks, but if your DMP comes to an end in 18 months with all creditors receiving the full amount, they are unlikely to accept a !!!!!! as they are getting 100% of their money back anyway...

This does NOT mean there is no point in trying, though if any do agree to settle, the settlement amount will unlikely be much less than 80%. They only go for low settlements if the do not see any likely prospect of receiving their money back at all...

Perhaps someone else here can make suggestions - especially regarding !!!!!! in a DMP...
I would personally approach your creditors privately and be upfront about your situation - you may get lucky!

sickasachip13

sickasachip13 wrote: »

Hi,
I forgot to update this with my F&F news from the end of last year. I settled with Cap One and Ikea (Ikano finance) for around 40% of what was owed. These weren't huge debts and I am on a DMP so I was happy to go forward on that amount.

The process I undertook:
I phoned them to see if, hypothetically, they were open to a F&F offer and both said they were.
I mentioned it to CCCS.
I wrote, using the template letter from the National Debtline website, adding in a few lines about being on a DMP and it being years before these debts would be paid on the DMP.
They wrote back, each looking for around 60% of the debt.
We wrote back to them with a counter offer.
They wrote back. I rang National Debtline and read the letters down the phone to them to ensure all the bases were covered in the wording.
I contacted CCCS to inform them that the F&Fs were going ahead, this was fine with them.
Sent a cheque and covering letter back to creditors.
Reduced to £0 the amount owing to these two on the CCCS file.

Job done. Stress free, just a bit of to-ing and fro-ing.
SAAC

So, I'm back on this thread again. This time I'm starting the process I detailed above with Blair, Oliver and Scott, Metropolitan and Cap One, using some promised christmas money and Mr SAACs overtime.

I'll report back with any news.

SAAC

PinotGrigio41

sickasachip13 wrote: »

So, I'm back on this thread again. This time I'm starting the process I detailed above with Blair, Oliver and Scott, Metropolitan and Cap One, using some promised christmas money and Mr SAACs overtime.

I'll report back with any news.

SAAC

Sorry for the question. Am I reading this correctly SickAAC in that you offered an F&F and settled a couple of accounts ie Capital One and Ikea last year and that you are now in the process of trying to agree F&F's with Blair Oliver etc ?

The reason for the question is that I understood that you could not make an offer of an F&F to just one creditor as they would be seen to be receiving Preferential treatment and the others would jump up and down . We are in a position that we may possibly be able to make an offer to one or two of our smallest creditors . I am wary of doing so incase we upset the apple cart with the others though .

Having done lots and lots of reading on the subject it appears that there may be no set way of doing things here, just pot luck ?

We are with Cashflow, rather than CCCS PAyplan etc so effectively our Accounts are self mangaged, may we possibly stand more chance of being able to make Full and Finals to just one or two of our creditorsthan if we hd been with CCCS and made the offers via them ?

Sorry for all of the questions.

Any thoughts or advice from those in the know would be very much appreciated ! Thankyou !