HELP! Lots of debt! Can I keep my house?

Daisy4478

Hi,

After years of taking on loan after loan to pay the bills and basically robbing Peter to pay Paul, i have found myself with a debt of almost 60k. I am beside myself with worry. I put the house on the market last year as I had equity of 50K with a hope of moving to a smaller house and making my debts more manageable. However with the drop in house prices there is only about 8K equity now and with the fees of moving im not sure if I would even break even. So moving seems like its out of the equation.

I went to citizens advice last week and am waiting for an appointment with their financial advisor. I guess that they will advise to contact my creditors to arange lower payments. I am up to date with all my payments on everything as yet but that is not going to last a lot longer.

So long as i keep up with my morgage and other 'priority' bills - can my house be repossesed by any of the loan and credit card people i owe money to? (I have no secured loans) Also, what about baliffs? If they do come to an arrangement with lower payments, can they still send baliffs in? I have 2 small children and am really worried about all this. Cant see an end to all the worry.

PLEASE HELP :0(

redpoison

Hey hun.

Please don't worry. Have you contacted national debt line? http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/ 0808 808 4000

Their website has alot of standard letters you could perhaps use to send your crediters. I believe aslong as you keep paying your mortgage, you won't lose your home.

Please contact national debt line on their free phone number above, they have no end of information.

Please could you do statement of affairs http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Burlesque_Babe

the only time that bailiffs can visit is when there is a CCJ in place. (or a liability order for Council Tax).

Deep_In_Debt

As long as you keep up to date with your mortgage it is very unlikely that your house will be respossessed by your unsecured creditors. However, creditors can apply for a Charging Order which is basically turning the debt into a secured one against the property but even with this, as long as you keep up the payments, it is unlikely that your house will be repossessed.

RAS

DAISY

Please speak to NDl and discuss all your options with them.

If you have no equity, then it may even be worth considering bankruptcy, as you might be able to keep the house (depending whether it would cost more to rent than you are paying in mortgage), rather than waiting for charging orders to erode your non-existant equity.

BUT, you must get proper advice on this. If NDl recommend Bk, then go to the BK sub-forum (just below the resources bar above) and folk can help you. If they reccommend a DMP, then come and chat to us here.

Daisy4478

I phoned CCCS the other night and they said a DMP might be an option. I was on the phone to them for ages but my heads all over the place at the minute so didnt really take a great deal in! I called debt free direct but decided against going with them as they charge which will add to debts which is how i ended up at citizens advice. I have set up a new bank account and am in the process of changing wages and priority debts over. Everything just seems a real struggle. Thanks for all your advice. Bit scary coming on here :0s

Deep_In_Debt

Under no circumstances go with Debt Free Direct - they specialise in IVA's - I nearly got my fingers burnt with them.

You have done the right thing posting on here and contacting CCCS. I'm on a dmp with them and they've been great.

Please do keep posting on here. Everyone's here to help. Been a god send for me! Also, do keep contacting CCCS if you need to know anything. That's what they're there for.

Lots of people here (including me!) are on dmps so please feel free to ask anything.

Good luck.

Burlesque_Babe

don't be scared - we're all lovely on here - quite a few are a bit nutty, but on the whole we're quite sane

RAS

We are known on other boards as huggies or huggers - because we do.

The only time our claws come out is when we encounter the odd troll.

LoulaBelle

HI Daisy,

Would you like to post your SOA and we can have a look to see if there are any area's that money can be saved/cut back ??? That'll be scary too but there are some lovely folk on here who are so clued up and financially savy its great.

Chin Up - oh and welcome to the board

LoulaBelle

I'm just going over to ebay some stuff now before 3 year wakes from his nap - but will check back later to see if you have posted your SOA

vikki400

Hi

I used to work in debt recovery (don't hate me I was a goodie) it was a while ago, but this should still be relevant.

A company can only apply for a charging order (making an unsecured debt into a secured one) a baliff order or an attachment of earnings (taking money straight out of you pay or benefits) if you default on a CCJ without prior agreement. The fact that you have come here means you have no intention of doing this so you have nothing to worry about. The fact that you are doing something about it means you are unlikely to even get a CCJ as a bank won't incurr cost they are not going to get back unless there is no other option.

This does mean it is important to set an arrangement that you can meet; there is no point agreeing something unachievable to keep your creditors happy.

You are making the right first step coming here (and a good second step avoiding DFD!), back when I was in DR it used to break my heart seeing customers we could help being sucked into paying stupid amounts of money to have a company force them deeper into dept. These people have never got your best interests at heart. As others have mentioned the CCCS/CAB/NDL are your best bet.