Ask a CCCS counsellor a question

CCCS_Sarah

chris1972 wrote: »

Hi

To dive straight in, I have recently been forced to change jobs and have taken a big pay cut because of this. I am now in a position of being over commited to paying off debts. Obviously I am very worried, but I am trying to sort it out. I have been on the CCCS website and filled the online form in. However I am concerned about the effect on my credit rating.

The other option I may have is to speak to my mortgage lender and get the debt paid off by them to give me a lower rate. Obviously the amount paid back depends on the length of the term but this would not adversly effect my credit rating.

I am getting more than a little confused.

Any advice would be greatfully accepted.

Hello,

The first thing I would advise is not to secure any debt against your home, as if you were to get in to further difficulties further down the line and you could not maintain your payments this would put your home at risk. Also you could end up paying a lot more in interest if the loan was over a longer term.

With regards your credit rating, this is only important if you are wanting further credit. At the moment you cant afford anymore so your credit file is irrelevant. Once your situation does start to improve, your credit file will as well.

Sarah

chris1972_2

CCCS_Sarah wrote: »

Hello,

The first thing I would advise is not to secure any debt against your home, as if you were to get in to further difficulties further down the line and you could not maintain your payments this would put your home at risk. Also you could end up paying a lot more in interest if the loan was over a longer term.

With regards your credit rating, this is only important if you are wanting further credit. At the moment you cant afford anymore so your credit file is irrelevant. Once your situation does start to improve, your credit file will as well.

Sarah

Hi Sarah

With my new job, I am covering my mortgage obligations + all bills etc. My concern is that if I go down the route of a DMP, how will it affect my ability to remortgage when my fixed rate period ends in 7 years. It probably sounds pretty daft worrying about this now when I have enough to worry about with my debt. If I went on a DMP, and feasably paid it off in about 7 years, would I still have a bad rating? (I'm atarting to wonder if I'm making any sense at this point)!

CCCS_Sarah

chris1972 wrote: »

Hi Sarah

With my new job, I am covering my mortgage obligations + all bills etc. My concern is that if I go down the route of a DMP, how will it affect my ability to remortgage when my fixed rate period ends in 7 years. It probably sounds pretty daft worrying about this now when I have enough to worry about with my debt. If I went on a DMP, and feasably paid it off in about 7 years, would I still have a bad rating? (I'm atarting to wonder if I'm making any sense at this point)!

You are making sense, don’t worry!

When it comes to re mortgaging, if you have an adverse credit file then this would not mean you wouldn’t get a new mortgage it means you would have to search harder for a better rate of interest. This is because a lot of companies use a rate for risk.

I would never recommend securing any debt against your home, ask about on the forums and many people will say the same thing.

If you don’t want to offer reduced payments is there any way that you can increase your income? I.e. second job, are you eligible for any benefits, overtime?

Molanole

Hi

I'm hoping you can help. My parents-in-law are currently in a DMP with CCCS which I am helping them with (what with being a long-standing DFW myself). However, I've not done a DMP myself so this is uncharted territory for me.

MIL was showing me some of her recent letters and statements at the weekend (I write all the letters going to creditors for her as she can't write very well and doesn't know how to use a computer). She has received two statements from Barclaycard, with the first saying that her debt has been passed to Mercers, and the following month saying it has been passed to Calders. So we're not really sure now who it is with.

I've advised her just to send photocopies on to CCCS so that you can change where she currently makes her payments to. Is this right??

Also, I'm thinking of starting them off on reclaiming their bank charges (which will obviously mean a lot more letter writing for me). They currently have lots of charges on their old bank accounts with HSBC and Natwest. HSBC are being complete nightmares so I'm not worried about their relationship with them, but Natwest have been pretty good and stopped all the interest. Do you think if I start the reclaiming process they will get funny with them and start charging them again?

Sorry for the long winded post. Hope you can help.

Mola

chris1972_2

CCCS_Sarah wrote: »

You are making sense, don’t worry!

When it comes to re mortgaging, if you have an adverse credit file then this would not mean you wouldn’t get a new mortgage it means you would have to search harder for a better rate of interest. This is because a lot of companies use a rate for risk.

I would never recommend securing any debt against your home, ask about on the forums and many people will say the same thing.

If you don’t want to offer reduced payments is there any way that you can increase your income? I.e. second job, are you eligible for any benefits, overtime?

Just to be clear, I am not against reduced payments, my concern is the effect it would have on the mortgage later on. Having looked into the DMP scenario thourgh the CCCS website, it would mean paying off my debt far more quickly than I would probably be able to even before my loss of income.

I have a smallholding which takes up a great deal of my time for a second job. As I am still setting it up, I am not able to generate any sizeable income from that, the odd 1/2 doz eggs every now and then doesn't get much. Although a lot of the produce does offset the cost of groceries.

CCCS_Sarah

Molanole wrote: »

Hi

I'm hoping you can help. My parents-in-law are currently in a DMP with CCCS which I am helping them with (what with being a long-standing DFW myself). However, I've not done a DMP myself so this is uncharted territory for me.

MIL was showing me some of her recent letters and statements at the weekend (I write all the letters going to creditors for her as she can't write very well and doesn't know how to use a computer). She has received two statements from Barclaycard, with the first saying that her debt has been passed to Mercers, and the following month saying it has been passed to Calders. So we're not really sure now who it is with.

I've advised her just to send photocopies on to CCCS so that you can change where she currently makes her payments to. Is this right??

Also, I'm thinking of starting them off on reclaiming their bank charges (which will obviously mean a lot more letter writing for me). They currently have lots of charges on their old bank accounts with HSBC and Natwest. HSBC are being complete nightmares so I'm not worried about their relationship with them, but Natwest have been pretty good and stopped all the interest. Do you think if I start the reclaiming process they will get funny with them and start charging them again?

Sorry for the long winded post. Hope you can help.

Mola

Hello,

Your spot on, if you send us the letters we will just change who we are paying. I would recommend she does try and reclaim her bank charges; this money is a lot better going towards her debts.

Sarah

slimjim74

We are struggling to make our mortgage payments and have contacted our lender. In order to go on an interest only mortgage we have to prove we have the means to pay the excess off - how do we do this? If we had extra money we would be using it to pay the mortgage ! They can't guarantee we can do this, but if we could prove it we would need to pay £75 to do this.

They have suggested we could extend the term of our mortgage to 30 years which will lower the payments, but will this seriously affect us in the long term?

We really need a payment break or something for 3 - 6 months until we get back on our feet again.

Is there anything we can do? short term preferably

CCCS_Sarah

chris1972 wrote: »

Just to be clear, I am not against reduced payments, my concern is the effect it would have on the mortgage later on. Having looked into the DMP scenario thourgh the CCCS website, it would mean paying off my debt far more quickly than I would probably be able to even before my loss of income.

I have a smallholding which takes up a great deal of my time for a second job. As I am still setting it up, I am not able to generate any sizeable income from that, the odd 1/2 doz eggs every now and then doesn't get much. Although a lot of the produce does offset the cost of groceries.

You would be more than welcome to have a telephone appointment with a counsellor, might be worth having a chat through your options. If you would like an appointment our number is 0800 138 1111.

Sarah

thealfster

hi everyone this is my first post on the mse forum and would be very gratefull for any advice, have got a credit card with £2800 owing annual apr 17.9 an overdraft of £3000 @19.5 plus numerous other outgoings but just cannot get them any lower because of the interest is there any way of getting the interest frozen have rung them both with no joy the problem is have not yet missed a payment so no one will help many thanks

runningems

Hi

I have today completed the debt remedy on the CCCS website albeit it rather quickly with 2 children running around so may need to go back and tweek a few bits & pieces.

To try and get straight to the point, my OH and I between us have some credit card debts loans and overdraft which I feel are now getting out of control and the situation is keeping me awake at night. At the moment we have been able to make all our monthly payments and we are not in arrears with anyone we seem to be able to struggle through each month taking a bit here and putting it over there but I am now getting to the stage where I don't want to struggle but want to get something in place to pay off so I feel that we are getting somewhere and that we are not going to be homeless next week!

CCCS website recommended a DMP but I'm not sure how this works - do we still have a bank account with a cheque book / debit card facility I am not sure that we could pay everything in cash? My OH monthly salary can vary each month with overtime although none of its guaranteed (although I think our main prob is that we have been living as if it was) even more so of late - what would happen on the months that we earnt more money I'm not thinking that we keep it and not pay of our debts but would it be taken straight from us or would we be able to put aside some for the kids birthday if it was coming up etc.? My OH doesn't know I have posted and I am not sure how he would feel about a DMP or if it even exists he has said about such things in the past that our life wouldn't be our own but I feel I need to do something as I can feel the worry starting to take over all aspects of life.