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CCCS_Matthew

ajinapickle wrote: »

So here is the story... I used to be quite good with money paid off credit cards when they were due etc... but then let them slip when I found out about the 0% deals on offer.

My hisband and I own 2 porpeties both of which are worth about what I paid for them.
Loans
I owe 13k on an egg loan, -£278 p mth
7,500k on another - 158 p mth
3k on another - 70 p mth
Overdraft of 4k
credit cards:
1 - 1500
2 - 5000
3 - 3000
Payments of at least £650 per mth + nursery fees
My husband has 2 CCJs so getting credit for him is a no go and both mortages and all debt is in my name.

I have been offered an IVA with a payemt of 292 p mth for 5 years.

Can anyone recommend any other options or advice on whether the IVA is the best route. I have been toying with the idea of a secured loan and one payment of £400 oer 10 years to cover 30k of the debt and shifting the rest on c/cards.

Stressed and confused

Hi there, thanks for posting.

It's hard to say whether an IVA is best advice based on the bits of information you've provided. An IVA is generally only relevant for a small percentage of people. Your first step is to draw up a comprehensive budget to see what you have got left over for debt repayments, and to ensure that the figures provided are likely to be seen as acceptable from the creditors point of view.

You mention you've been 'offered' and IVA at £292 a month. How did you reach this figure? I would advise against securing debt onto one of your properties, as you generally commit to paying a lot more back over a longer period of time (paying £400 a month over 10 years to pay £30k worth of debt is going to cost you £48k). You also put assets at risk should you not be able to pay the £400.

I’d say if you haven’t already done so it would be worth speaking to a debt counsellor about your situation to discuss your options in detail. If you would like to do so you would need to call our helpline on 0800 138 1111 to speak to an advisor. Lines are open from Mon-Fri, 08:00-20:00. If you decide to call it would be handy to have some details on your income, expenditure and creditors as this helps speed up the process of getting you an appointment with a counsellor.

Regards,
Matthew.

juliesmiles

Hi, I wonder if anybody can give me some advice as a first timer on this site and a little bit scared......

I took out a loan with Welcome Finance several years ago and never missed a payment, when it came very close to the end of the loan they contacted me to ask if I would like to take out a top up loan. As I was going through a rough divorce at the time I took their offer up, The inital loan was over a period of 24 months. The second loan was taken over a period of 36 months. My payments increased from £137.00 per month to £225.00. I managed to keep the payments up for well over 15 months and then fell into financially difficulty, lost my job and then started temping. I was then lucky enough to gain full time employment and I contacted Welcome to try and reinstate my payments.

I requested a statement from them which I received and was horrified to see what the settlement figure was for.

I know my message may seem a little vague at the moment. I have managed to find my credit agreements last night and have started to go through my bank statements to see exactly how much I have paid Welcome back, I will be able to post these details in a couple of days when I have got my head around it all.

Welcome are constantly on the telephone and making daily visits to my home address (during the day when I am obviously at work, they have also mentioned to my neighbour where they are from which is very embarrasing for me). Thus occurring additional charges to my account.

I am not shirking away from my responsibilities, but am now becoming increasingly stressed about this situation. I feel like it is a never ending debt that no matter how much I pay them, its never going to come to an end.

Can anybody please give me some advice and help.

CCCS_Matthew

juliesmiles wrote: »

Hi, I wonder if anybody can give me some advice as a first timer on this site and a little bit scared......

I took out a loan with Welcome Finance several years ago and never missed a payment, when it came very close to the end of the loan they contacted me to ask if I would like to take out a top up loan. As I was going through a rough divorce at the time I took their offer up, The inital loan was over a period of 24 months. The second loan was taken over a period of 36 months. My payments increased from £137.00 per month to £225.00. I managed to keep the payments up for well over 15 months and then fell into financially difficulty, lost my job and then started temping. I was then lucky enough to gain full time employment and I contacted Welcome to try and reinstate my payments.

I requested a statement from them which I received and was horrified to see what the settlement figure was for.

I know my message may seem a little vague at the moment. I have managed to find my credit agreements last night and have started to go through my bank statements to see exactly how much I have paid Welcome back, I will be able to post these details in a couple of days when I have got my head around it all.

Welcome are constantly on the telephone and making daily visits to my home address (during the day when I am obviously at work, they have also mentioned to my neighbour where they are from which is very embarrasing for me). Thus occurring additional charges to my account.

I am not shirking away from my responsibilities, but am now becoming increasingly stressed about this situation. I feel like it is a never ending debt that no matter how much I pay them, its never going to come to an end.

Can anybody please give me some advice and help.

Hi Julie, thanks for posting.

First things first the OFT state it's an unfair business practice (2.6, I) for them to be "disclosing or threatening to disclose debt details to third parties unless legally entitled to do so"

I would be inclined to write a formal letter of complaint to advise they are breaking the Office of Fair Trading debt collection guidelines. This should help stop them from doing this again.

As far as the actual debt is concerned, have you been making regular payments so far, or is it just rececent since you've instigaged an offer again now you're working again?

When you're ready if you could provide some details on how much you originally owed over the 24 months, how much you've paid, and how much is now outstanding, it will help to put things into perspective a little bit.

Regards,
Matthew.

miss_bexy

Another question sorry folks.
CCCS just contacted us regards our figures being a bit off in terms of my OH's wages. So they are being corrected ie we are reworking our budget.

My question is, I am heavily pregnant literally about to pop any day now. Because we are keen to get the DMP running asap, we have put that we have one child on our budget as for all intents and purposes, this time 2moro we could! In terms of my income I have put down child benefit, as I know definitely this will be £20 a week. I haven't put down CTC as I don't know what I will get or how long it will take.
Is this ok? Or have I done something majorly wrong? I'm starting to get a bit confused and disheartened now after such a strong start.

CCCS_Matthew

miss_bexy wrote: »

Another question sorry folks.
CCCS just contacted us regards our figures being a bit off in terms of my OH's wages. So they are being corrected ie we are reworking our budget.

My question is, I am heavily pregnant literally about to pop any day now. Because we are keen to get the DMP running asap, we have put that we have one child on our budget as for all intents and purposes, this time 2moro we could! In terms of my income I have put down child benefit, as I know definitely this will be £20 a week. I haven't put down CTC as I don't know what I will get or how long it will take.
Is this ok? Or have I done something majorly wrong? I'm starting to get a bit confused and disheartened now after such a strong start.

Hi Bexy.

This isn't an issue, as you won't know what your entitled to in terms of CTC until the baby is born and you've actually made a claim. What you will need to do though is to review the budget once you know what you are recieving, as this ensures the budget is then reflective of your situation.

It's also worth keeping tabs on the extra costs that are involved on a regular basis when the baby is born, as you might find that you've perhaps underestimated the costs within food, toiletries etc. If this is the case, we can always review these too to make sure that things are sustainable for your family.

In the mean time, you might want to check on www.entitledto.co.uk as it will give you an idea of how much you will get for CTC based on earnings. It will only be a guide though, so don't rely on this figure until you know exactly what you are getting!

Hope this helps, try not to panic, that's the last thing you need when your about to pop!

Regards,
Matthew.

barge

I have spoken to a CCCS councilor today to review my DMP which I have had for 3 months. She said that I need to write to my bank asking that they stop the monthly account fee as I no longer require the benefits ans it is not helping my financial situation with this fee going on each month. I no longer use the account although it is the overdraft is part of the DMP. Lloyds TSB is the bank and they are continuing to apply the monthly account fee, overdraft excess fee, unauthorised overdraft excess fee and interest. I know I may sound a bit thick but I just can't seem to put a letter together. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thedrum

barge wrote: »

I have spoken to a CCCS councilor today to review my DMP which I have had for 3 months. She said that I need to write to my bank asking that they stop the monthly account fee as I no longer require the benefits ans it is not helping my financial situation with this fee going on each month. I no longer use the account although it is the overdraft is part of the DMP. Lloyds TSB is the bank and they are continuing to apply the monthly account fee, overdraft excess fee, unauthorised overdraft excess fee and interest. I know I may sound a bit thick but I just can't seem to put a letter together. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I am currently in a DMP and Lloyds are one of our creditors, 3 different accounts, one of which is an O/D. For a while after the DMP was set up they were still adding charges on a regular basis but that seems to have stopped now and they have accepted what we have offered them. As for the Account Fees, i'm not sure but would think that they should be able to cancel this unless there is a fixed term agreement of some sort, but i am just guessing. There will i am sure be many others on this thread that will know for sure.

thedrum

Could somebody tell me if it is ok to pay off some of my creditors whilst i am in a DMP or would it be deemed as 'Preferential Treatment' to those creditors? I have maybe 3 of my creditors that are fairly small amounts that maybe i could pay off, but i don't want to rock the boat with my other creditors and have them pull out of accepting the payments that they are getting.

Thanks in advance

Beaver67_2

hi There, my hubby and I are registered with CCCS. A while ago my husband got a parking fine by westminster council £80.00. We wrote to them saying we couldn't pay all at once, can we pay by installments. They refused. - They increased the amount. again we explained what has been going on with us and we are getting help from CCCS - again they refused installment payments. They have passed the debt on to collection/recovery agents-Phillips. We have written to them saying that we cannot settle the bill and sent £1 postal order and explained we will have to do this each month until our circumstances change. They have refused - said that £1 just isn't good enough and they are sending a recovery agent round to our house. This will cost us an additional £200.00 for each visit. When they get fed up, I dare say that they will try to take us to court - and by that time I dare say that the bill will be in the thousands because of the additional charges. I despair - we are having to put our house on the market, I have a 9 month baby, I was made redundant 2 months after going back to work from maternity leave, and my husbands business has failed. I ensure that my daughter has proper food etc - but for my part, I'm surviving on a bit of toast for breakfast, a sandwich or perhaps "under £1" micromeal and nothing else per day (Except for tea/coffee etc) - what do these people want me to do - stop eating altogether!!!!!! I can't do it. I'm trying to find a job - as I'm on job seekers allowance.... I can't see that there is anything else we can do... Any suggestions please?
Many thanks.

ANNIEHAHA

H we owe CSA £7700 for 1996-2000
we do not pay anything since 2000 as we are low income & 2 kids ourselves
we have been paying eversheds £50 a month (our income is £16,000 inc. ctc and child benefit
we have sent bank statements and a list of all our outgoings
they have wrote back asking what a couple of payments into the account are and want to know if my husband has any assets
We can ill afford the £50 a month now
they are bullying us and will not accept a lower payment or let thhe CSA deal with it (they are Csa solicitors)
please help next step is baliffs / ccj