Ask a CCCS counsellor a question

neilm1m

Hi,

Not really sure how to frame this question but I will explain a little of my situation.
I would very much like to know what my rights are and what I can do about this.

I am in the process of being divorced. I met someone last april and whilst working between the UK and Ireland spent quite a bit of time at her house. Staying approximately 2/3 nights per week. In May we split up for a few weeks or so, back together June and back to staying in a similar pattern again. Split up once more about half way through July untill the end of August. Since then I have been more or less permanently there.
Although whilst there at the start I offered to pay towards the bills (several times), this was refused. When back in August I offered again and was refused up untill about 3/4 weeks after I started living there. I was told that half of the bills would be 350 a month which I agreed to pay. from then I paid 350 and managed to lose my contract which put me out of work and with no money apart from my final wage.
From that I paid 450 as she had decided that the bills were more with two of us being there. I agreed to this. This period was approx 3 months.
We have just split up again but this time all of my own stuff is left in the house and she wont let me get it. She is now saying that I owe her everything that she has spent on her credit card £2000 since I was around in April.
I don't believe that this is fair in any way as allthough I have not paid all of what the 'rent' would be, I have paid for various bits of shopping etc and tried to help out in that way.
She wants me to put this in writing or I cannot collect my things.
What I am really asking is if there is anything I can add to a letter agreeing to this that is basically saying I am agreeing under duress?

I know that this is not strictly a money problem but this is a serious problem to me, if you cant help, any pointers in the right direction would be appreciated.

Thankyou.

thefoolonthehill

CCCS_Sarah wrote: »

Thank you for your message.

Ask them for a breakdown of the debt, we will be able to send proof of payment if they advise that no payments were made.

Do you think this could be another debt that was originally missed off the dmp? as there is a big difference in the amounts.

Let me know how you get on with the breakdown and then we can take it from there.

Sarah

Thanks Sarah

All my debts went into my DMP, with Nationwide - i had two, these were an o/d and c/c. The od was originally around 1200 but after regaining bank charges it dropped down to 285. The cc debt was around 3000. I presume its the o/d as the figures seem to tie in.

All the payments have been made to Nationwide, so am bemused as to why they would sell the debt on after I had paid it off, as I said this debt was cleared around 5 months ago.

I will write to them for a break down and advise from their.

thanks

cloudnine_2

Hi. Everyone I speak to say 'never' to disclose my mortgage ( interest only ) and home equity ( severe negative equity of £30K ) to a DCA. However, if my case went to court say for a charging order application, wouldn't this information given now to the DCA make them think twice about the logic of pursuing me in this way? Far better to come to a monthly payment ( DMP ) scenario? I'm wondering if to tell this DCA ( 1st Credit ) this information now, or, later, should they pursue me for a charging order or issue a stat demand. I'm prepared for either. Early days.

CCCS_Sarah

trixxi wrote: »

Hi,
hope this is posted in the right place, here goes...
My husband and I have received a small claims summons each for work done by a garage to both of our cars.
The amount in total they are claiming is £344.10 which we do not dispute ( we had told them previously we were having difficulties and he accepted this, until now.) I contacted his solicitor as there is expenses and interest to pay over and above. The solicitor has come back with a total price of £697.10 which we can not pay.
The paper work is not all accurate and I am wondering why we have two separate charges for fees, sherriff officers delivering the forms, raising it fees and solicitors fees. The copies of invoices have both of our amounts on them, suggesting to me one account and not two individual ones. They also have our address wrong and postcode wrong, which is why we did not receive these letters recorded delivery and now we are being charged for the hand delivery. Is this fair?
I do not want this to go to court as my husband has just started a new job which involves passing credit checks, and this affecting it.
Please help.

Hello,

Sorry for the delay in the response. I have checked this with my colleague in Glasgow and this is her response to your question.

I can advise that the garage would require to send two summons due to the fact that both their names appear on the account for the garage and therefore expenses would be due for issue of both. If they do not wish to go to court regarding this they will need to pay the amount in full. If, however, they wish to dispute due to incorrect address and postcode, they would need to appear at court to make the dispute or instruct a Solicitor to act on their behalf, which could be quite expensive.


Hope this helps

shellfishb5

Morning everybody
WARNING
Sorry this is a long post
I have got my DMP up and running with CCCS everything seemed ok, i went to my bank HSBC with whom i have a current account which i am still using at the moment and a joint acct which is on my DMP. So i went to use ATM and the machine chewed up my card i went in the branch and asked why. Eventually we find out that HSBC collections people have arranged a managed loan to cover the overdraft thats on the DMP lady in the branch knew nothing about this, but she did find out that my current acct is still ok to use and they are sending me a new solo card to use. I cant understand why i had not received a letter telling me about this loan and my card being cancelled.
I phoned CCCS and ask if they were aware of this loan arrangement, i have been told on no acct sign any paperwork apparently i have to sign a loan agreement for this loan. its a trick as once you sign loan agreement you are in breech of your DMP arrangement and CCCS would not be able to help me anymore, with the loan you end up paying more money and extra interest on top as well, the man from collections dept was telling me that this is what hsbc policy is, that they give me a loan to cover the debt and then CCCS pay the loan through the DMP so beware i dont know if this common policy or a new trick used by the nasty banks.
i have managed to open a basic acct with natwest so i am going to hsbc today and withdraw all my funds and put in new acct


Update
Have removed all funds from HSBC current account, received new card from HSBC which i need to activate online, i will need to activate card as i might need access to the account if my wages go in wrong account.
I have not heard anything from HSBC regarding the managed loan they have arranged for me.

take care
Andy

Darth_chaffinch

CCCS_Matthew wrote: »

The other issue is that they are trying to claim interest on the debt, when the CCA also states that interest cannot be added on a charging order if it is regulated by the CCA. Can I ask what the debt was originally?

Matthew.

Matthew- does this mean that banks shouldn't be charging me interest on all my debts please?? I'm in a CCCS plan, but am being slowly crippled by the continuing interest payments- I really don't see any end to it all.

HarryStottle

Hi guys,

I have found myself in a difficult position, I suffered from depression some 3 years ago, I went into self destruct mode, lost my job, home partner etc, I spent all that I had and more. I managed to run up around £12,000 in debt on credit cards and overdrafts. I just buried my head in the sand and hoped that it would go away. Suprise suprise- it's still there! 3 years on I have decided to face up to the issue and sort it out. The biggest problems that I am facing are; I am not sure who to pay the money to - originally the debt was to HBOS and Black Horse, now I have finally opened the leters that I have been avoiding to find out that 3 different debt collection agencies are after the same sum - who do I contact/pay?

I also do not have a bank account, I am employed but my wages are paid into an old savings account which means that all of my transactions are in cash, I only have a passport for ID purposes.

I have done a statement of affairs and am aware of the amount I can pay (although I may need more help).

Please let me know what might be the best course of action.

Many thanks,

S

sunshine38_2

to keep going with our DMP.

Hi guys and gals

Apologies for being so woeful but I really dont know how much more we can take. Long story short, me and hubby have been on DMP with CCCS since June when we made our first payment. Admittedly, it was a struggle because I lost my job just before it was due to start but didnt want to "rock the boat". Consequently we ended up with mortgage arrears and council tax arrears which we have been trying to pay from our allocated budget. I did get another job but it took six weeks.

We had a review just over a month ago and still I kept quiet about them ... all the while thinking that surely, somehow, we will get back up to date and be able to live within the budget we were supposed to have.

Our payments were reduced from £210 to £201 when we had the review. I know that CCCS work really hard and that you peeps on here are very helpful but I felt like a naughty school girl being told off for not managing better with the budget we were left with, so I agreed to just the £9 reduction.

Since that review we've had shocking news from the CSA that previous payments had not been sufficient (based on hubby's self employment/tax return now sorted) and they threatened enforcement action, claiming that we had been sent several reminders etc. So, the payments there have had to double or they threatened to take 40% of hubby's wages.

I've come home tonight to a bill for scottish power claiming that we owe £86 for the period 11/10/08 to 29/10/08 which I am stunned about ... we have always had a pre-payment meter and have recently changed back to British Gas ... ironically in an attempt to save money. How can they attempt to charge us that much money when we paid on a prepayment meter?!! I kept trying to ring to get an explanation ... after 3 minutes going through their automated service, each time I was told they were busy and to "try later"!! Anyway, the point is, there now appears yet another debt to be added to the never ending list.

When I updated figures on the CCCS list of creditors last month, we actually owe more money to the majority of the creditors than we did at the beginning due to charges/interest.

I've been threatened with court proceedings (for a £328 debt - one of the smallest!) and I've managed to send a CCA request to the solicitors and am wondering whether they will produce a signed copy of the agreement - time runs out this Friday. I'm not trying to avoid payment of the debt - just need time.

Well, I'm saying I/we just need time but when we started back in June, I stupidly thought that within six months we'd have had some breathing space and would be getting into a better position to be able to increase payments and get rid of the debts.

Me and hubby are arguing almost daily now - not always money related - but it must be niggling away at us both because we never used to be like this.

So, I think, after all that, my question has to be, what do I/we do now?

Sorry for the long ramble

Sunshine

elaine1geo

HI, I have a personal loan and 5 credit cards. I am quite happy with the repayments on the personal loan but would like to see if I could freeze the interest on the credit cards so that I can pay it off quicker. Is this possible or would I have to go into all the credit I have and mess with it? In particular I have an MBNA card which has an interest rate of 34.9% apr. I tried to renegotiate this interest rate when it was at 29.9% but about 3 months later they increased it to the higher rate.

squirreltop

realise an IVA can cut down the payments and limit the period to 5 years.

My situation is that I can continue to pay off my debts on accounts that have frozen interest and payments according to means over the next 6 to 8 years with income and ad-hoc future lump sums I am prepared to do this.

However, I have been told an IVA repairs the bad credit record after 5 plus 1 (6 years total) from its start date and you can start to build up the record again. In contrast, will my plan to take time in paying the debt off in full mean I have to wait another 6 years after these debts are discharged i.e. in 12 to 14 years for this to happen???

I would rather take the repsonsibility for my debts, but I might think twice if I (and by extension my familly) are actually penalised (relative to an IVA) for doing it.

Or am I mistaken?

Can anyone advise what the situation is? Thank you