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CCCS_Amanda

sledgeally wrote: »

Hi there wondering whether anyone has any wise words of help. Last year i lost my job and had considerable debts of approx 25 thousand. Due to this and other factors my partner and i split around xmas. we owned a house together and things became very strained. Due to the marketplace and the fact that houses are not selling we decided that the only way forward was for one or the other to buy the others share. She could not raise any funds but we agreed a figure of 18 thousand that my mother was prepared to pay on my behalf. Unfortunately due to my lack of work the mortgage company insisted the mortgage be cleared before they would remove my ex partners name. My mother managed to get hold of enough funds to do this and now i have a mortgage at the land registry with her. My problems are my debts other than this mortgage are approx 30 thousand and interest just keeps adding up on them. Everyone i talk to just tells me `why dont you just go bankrupt` whilst this may be an answer i am not a quitter and do take my responsibilties seriously i am just in the situation where i cannot pay not one where i wont. Some members of my family have offered to help but only to get rid of a debt completely but the type of money they have would not clear the whole of debts. Someone has told me about part settlements and negotiating with creditors ( whom are nearly all credit cards ). Could anyone tell me whether such things exist and what the rules/laws are to me attempting these negotiations on my own. Sorry for the long post but i really am lost as to where to start on this journey. I mean GE capital (Topman card ) told me they would accept £5 per week for 27 weeks to clear my £134.65 debt to them. I accepted this and asked for it in writing instead today i have received papers from court to say they are trying to drag me through court for this, bemusing me why i spent half an hour talking to them in the first place.

Hi Sledgeally,

Full and Final settlements are beneficial when you have access to a lump sum of money but not enough to clear a debt in full. Essentially you write to your creditor and offer to give them a one-off payment, of less than the full amount owed, and in return for this lump sum the creditor agrees to write off the remainder of the outstanding debt. It is essential that you receive confirmation in writhing from the creditor before you send them any money. Before you make the decision to look at either Bankruptcy or to offer full and final settlement there may be other options available to you based on your budget and financial circumstances. If you wish to discuss this further please call us on 0800 138 1111 to speak to a trained debt counsellor.

Alternately, you can visit our online debt advice facility called Debt Remedy. Click here to go directly to Debt Remedy.

Regards,

CCCS_Amanda

huxley78

Hi
My partner and i have roughly £90k (mostly from house rennovation) debt of which £40k is owed to parents. We have a lot of equity in our house, however after being on the market for over a year we aren't hopeful of selling it too soon (although fingers crossed on a viewing tomorrow!).
We are really struggling as my partner is self employed. We are terrified of not being able to get a mortgage or business loan in the future. Good ridance to credit cards though im not worried about them at all. If we had a DMP would it be likely to affect our chance of getting another mortgage?
If we sold the house (ever!!!!????) how much would go on the creditors debts and would parents have any entitlement whatsoever? They are fantastic but we feel guilty and really wnat to give their money back-or at least some for now?
Sorry if its waffled im just very confused at the mo
thankyou

huxley78

p.s we could have upto 50k equity if we are lucky and sell soonish

CCCS_Amanda

charliemouse wrote: »

does anyone have any advice????????? really kneed to know about these token payments & when they should be made.......Also about the MBNA issue

Hi Charliemouse,

Creditors will not always be happy with an offer of a token payment or with the knowledge that you will be unable to meet your next payment. It is common for them to stop you from using the credit facility further and, once you start missing your contractual payment then they could report this to the Credit Reference agencies. The counsellor at your appointment will explain in detail what can and can’t happen to you when you are unable to maintain your payments.

When making your token payments it is always best not to provide your debit card details as additional payments could be taken from the account. You could either send Postal Orders, pay over the counter where possible or even send a cheque.

Regards,

CCCS_Amanda

castlekeeper_2

Hi I wonder if anyone can help please. Some time ago we had a call from BT and signed up for Broadband and phone, however they must have also said something about BT vision, I cant remember. However we didn't even know what it was until we started to get bills, apparently its similar to SKY which is what we have already. I rang BT, the first person said do not worry they would cancel it and we would not have to pay, however they now keep sending bills. I have written twice to explain but they never reply. Is there anything we could do.

Regards

CCCS_Amanda

caramia1812 wrote: »

I have another question. I see lots of responses here lately about "not enough surplus for a DMP". Can you give me an indication of what constitutes "enough"? Can someone at least give me a ballpark figure of perhaps what % of the debt:monthly payment might be? I was also refused a DMP but have been living this past year on what CCCS said could not be lived on and now I am being run ragged by letters from retail collectioin department and differing information when phoning up. I'm getting letters back which do not answer by questions and even had a letter from customer complaints department to say they are dealing with my complaint but I never made a complaint until Monday. Advice on he above would be appreciated.

Hi Caramia1812,

For a DMP to be appropriate your debts need to clear in a reasonable amount of time whilst still having a realistic budget in place. If you are aiming to clear your debts in say 10 years time, you need to be able to live with your budget for that period of time.

If you would like to have another chat with us and have us to look at your circumstances again, you could always come back and have a chat with a counsellor. They will review your budget with you and offer advice on your creditors. You can call the helpline on 0800 138 1111 or click here to go to our online debt advice facility called Debt Remedy.

Regards,
CCCS_Amanda

CCCS_Sue

Norfolk_Jim wrote: »

Sorry if this is answered somewhere else in these pages but this sticky is so vast it'll take ages to read through it all.

If a DCA or CC company take me to court for an unpaid credit card and I am not disputing that the money is owed but just cant pay, live on benefits.
Will the judge take my income / circumstances into account when making the judgement? Is there anything in particular the defendant has to do to ensure the CCJ payments are set at an ammount that can actually be paid?

I see someone else up the board was ordered to pay in full.

Hi Norfolk_Jim and thanks for your email

If you are taken to court for a County Court Judgment (CCJ) then as well as returning the county court claim form, you would need to accompany it with a copy of your income and expenditure so that the judge can look at your circumstances and he will see how much you can realistically afford to pay. You also need to list any other creditors you owe money to.

It is always best to make an offer of payment yourself when filling in the claim form.

If the judge agrees that your offer is fair and realistic, then the CCJ will be set at this amount and you would pay this regularly each month.
If you did not put in an amount to offer to pay and the CCJ payment was set too high and was not realistic, then you could ask for this to be varied on form N245 which you can obtain from the court.
There is a fee for this, but the amount can be reduced or waived if you are on benefits by filling in a form Ex160a.

Hope this helps

CCCS_Sue

CCCS_Amanda

miller4 wrote: »

Hi,
My story so far.....

After o/h redundancy 4 years ago I have entered into a payplan scheme paying £1 per month to creditors approx £25-30K This has been a secret I have lived with all his time along with another personal loan from HSBC taken out before the payplan thing but afraid to inclde as we have a joint account with them and o/h pays salary into it, and hsbc will automatically take the £457 monthly payment from it..... I am now on incappacity benefit and as o/h has taken a lower salary and we have a huge mortgage taken after a move to make money ona property (which we have but cannot now sell it) taken out before o/h redundancy....

I do all the money dealing and we have survived these past years on reclaims with advice fom Martin Lewis, but now things have gotten awful and we cannot meet our monthly bills I have not paid the council tax for 4 months mortgage has fallen by £2000, endowment policy behind by 9 months and we have no surplus cash, I am struggleing to sleep and o/h is not aware..........

could go on..........

Hi miller4,

I know that is extremely difficult when you don’t have enough money to pay all of your monthly bills, and keeping this to yourself must be stressful. I know that it is a really big step to make but could you consider telling your o/h about the financial problems; the reaction may not be as bad as you imagine.

What worries me is that you are starting to fall behind with your priority bills (Council Tax, Mortgage, etc) and this will start to affect your home if you don’t deal with it. I would suggest that you call payplan and let them know what is happening. They will be able to offer specific advice on how to deal you’re your arrears and hopefully take steps to stop any action.

I am sure that your o/h would prefer to hear about the situation from you and not from your mortgage provider or a bailiff sent by the council.

Regards,
CCCS_Amanda

CCCS_Amanda

eusuphxai wrote: »

Firstly I m sorry if it is not the right place to post it but I coudnt find any other better place to post it.Sorry I m new.

NOW I had a contract with O2 through CPW and after a year I changed to simplicty.I overused my minutes and was charged 254.I couldn,t pay it and was reffered to Credit Soulotions.They Asked me that I have to pay total of 254. I agreed and made initial payment of 50 pounds and 30 pounds a month afterwards.Till now I have Paid 140 pounds.I thought I have the rest of the money so I called them so i could pay it.But found out I still have to pay 176 pounds.I asked them why is it and they told me becuase my contract is still in place so I m charged 33 pounds each month but I m not receving any services I cant use my phone.

bottom line is i was paying 30 pounds every month thinking that I m towards the end of my debt but found out it is increasing 3 pounds every month.I would also like to mention the guy from CSL (credit solutions) told me that the total payment I have to pay is 254 and no one ever mentioned 33 pounds line rental to me.

Is there any way I can just pay total of 254 and ask them not to charge me for extra 33 pounds a month as I was not using my phone (well I was not allowed to). Your help will be highly appreciated.

Regards.

Hi eusuphxai,

If you are still contractually obliged to O2 then there is not a lot that you can do until your contract runs out. As you are no longer using the phone, it becomes a non priority debt and you make a monthly offer of repayment based on your budget to CSL. Once the contract runs out then you will be able to decrease the debt.

If you are no longer bound by the original contract then make sure that you cancel the obligation, if O2 has not already done so. Again, you will just make an offer of payment to this debt to decrease.

I hope that this helps.

Regards,

CCCS_Amanda

CCCS_Sue

Angel_A wrote: »

Hello there, again I'm not sure if you can help me out with some advice.

Its with LTSB Bank. After several letters between me and them, (have been trying to claim back my bank charges and stop any more charges onto my account) they have sent me a letter telling me to get into contact regarding my financial situation. I have previously sent a financial statement (heard nothing about that either) So I did and they have said they cannot do anything with me, it has to come from the Consumer Credit Counsiling Service. The CCCS has to put in a proposal for me to the Financial Management Unit. But whenever I call it cuts me off, that line is always unavailable. So I hope you may be able to help.

Ok I have an overdraft (an old student account) of £500 and the only money I have coming in are benefits of Child Benefit and Tax Credit from my partner working, totalling roughly £120.00 per month. I gave up work to become a full time Mum. I have nothing else coming in. With this money I balance the monthly outgoings, school run (bus fares), my bills, catalogues, my personal bits n bobs. So every month it is all allocated very precisley. Last month I went over my overdraft by £2.00 and by the end of the month they charged me nearly £80.00 in fees. Taking me £581.88 overdrawn! I did write to them before the fees were applied, requesting they didn't take the proposed charges, but this was ignored. So now when I get any money this month (end) it will be swallowed up by the fees. I'll have £10.00 if I'm lucky to balance my bills. This is not enough. I also have a credit card with LTSB that has reached it's maximum and has gone over it's limit in charges and interest.

Now get this,LTSB actually advised me over the phone, not to make any more payments and to get myself a CCJ to prove my F.hardship. I missed one payment, felt uneasy with that and contacted them to try and arrange a payment scheme. ( I don't want to NOT pay my bill, I just wanted a bit of a breathing space) So they closed my account and I pay £11.00 a month to them. And they add £8.10 in interest a month. So effectively I pay £3.00 a month off on my balance. My balance for that account is £1800+. I am in dire straits and don't know what to do in my situation. My letters keep falling on deaf ears at LTSB.

Can anyone help or advise me please.

Thanks

Hi Angel A and thank you for your message

The first thing you need to do if you have not already done so,is to get a basic bank account elsewhere where you have no debts or overdraft facility and have your money paid into this account.
This puts you back in charge of your finances.
You can then make an affordable offer to repay the overdraft based on any surplus you have left after paying all your priority bills such as rent/utility bills/food/council tax etc.
If after putting together a budget showing your income and expenditure, you have no surplus, then offer a token payment as a gesture of good will of say £1 month.
If you would like help in putting together a budget and would like to speak to a debt counsellor,you can ring our free helpline on 0800 138 1111.

Really sorry to hear you have been unable to get through on our phone lines.
We're experiencing a massive demand for our service at the moment, I'm sorry you've not been able to get through. Unfortunately all our advisors answer inbound calls on the helpline so we are therefore unable to offer a call back service. Lines are open from 8am (Mon-Fri) and the best time to call is as early in the morning as possible. It would be helpful that when you call you have details ready regarding your income, expenditure and creditors, as this can help speed up the referral process. If you have this information ready it may be possible to refer you directly to a counsellor if one is available, otherwise we will arrange a time that is convenient for you to be called back for an appointment.

Alternatively, we have an online facility called Debt Remedy where you can complete a financial statement and be provided with advice on the best way to deal with your situation. Click here to go directly to Debt Remedy to get advice straight away.
Hope this helps

Regards
CCCS_Sue