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CCCS_Sarah

flowerbassett wrote: »

This is a long story but the short version is:

I have a house that i rent out and pay service charges for annually to a management company. I became a director of the company 2 years ago, and have received lots of correspondance from them. However last month I decided to retire from this directorship and wrote in. they sent me a letter requesting my date of birth on an e-mail.

I replied today and had a horrible shock. They e-mailed back and said that i owe £700 in service charges - £290 of this is the actual charges, and the rest is debt collection costs and court fees. Although there is no CCJ yet against me, court letters have been sent.

They are telling me that I have never given them my correct address and they couldn't find me, and yet I have several letters of correspondance from them at my correct address, and even bills from a couple of years ago. They admit that these outstanding bills they have never sent to my correct address, but still blame me.

I'm happy to pay the £280 of course, but not the other costs that have been incurred through no fault of my own.

What should I do? This company is not reasonable.....

Please Help!

Hello,

On the bottom left of the papers there should be a form number. If you post this number I will be able to give you some more in-depth advice. I can’t see how they can go ahead with these charges if it is their fault you have not been receiving them.

In most cases with court forms there is a section to defend the claim, send me the reference and I will have a look for you.

CCCS_Sarah

sarah8608 wrote: »

Hi i have struggled for months with our credit cards as i have not worked for 12 months we have 40k on credit cards,i have now come to the end of my savings and can no longer afford to pay the minimum amounts so i wrote to them all asking them to accept lower payments but they have all apart from one said that because they are not in arrears yet they cant help ???
i find this hard to understand as i have asked for help and untill i have incured a load of late charges they wont is this how it works ??
hope i have done this right i am new to this
mine and my partners
soa Monthly income after tax................ 0
Partners monthly income after tax....... 3300
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 75
Total monthly income.................... 3375
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 1523
Secured loan repayments................. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 141
Electricity............................. 60
Gas..................................... 244
Oil..................................... 60
Water rates............................. 35
Telephone (land line)................... 50
Mobile phone............................ 30
TV Licence.............................. 11
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 15
Groceries etc. ......................... 400
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 30
Road tax................................ 10
Car Insurance........................... 17
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 40
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 20
Buildings insurance..................... 31
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 36
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 10
Haircuts................................ 10
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 2773

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 250000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 0
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 250000

Secured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 230000...(1523).....7.1
Total secured debts........... 230000....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
credit card....................4600......110.......16
credit card....................3600......100.......0
credit card....................8100......167.......21
loan...........................20000.....293.......8
credit card....................10500.....201.......19
credit card....................11300.....221.......18
Total unsecured debts..........58100.....1092......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,375
Expenses (including secured debts)...... 2,773
Available for debt repayments........... 602
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 1,092
Surplus(deficit if negative)............ -490
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 250,000
Total Secured debt...................... -230,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -58,100
Net Assets.............................. -38,100

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for your message.

I would suggest that you and your husband come for an appointment to discuss this in detail. Even though you don’t have the full payments to give the creditors, it may still be possible for you to look at some type of reduced payment plan.

Are you looking to return to work soon? If so, even if this was part time it would reduce the term that you were paying the debts over, so something definitely to consider.

If you would like an appointment please call 0800 138 1111

Regards
CCCS

CCCS_Sarah

massive.debt wrote: »

I need some major help if you can.

Last year i had quite high debts, but they were manageable as my P60s were coming out at around £32,000 and i was starting to clear my debts down. I had a sharesave scheme at work, paying £50 a month x 3 on 3 schemes that would have been payable 2008, 2009, 2010 with about £7k due in February 2008, which was ear marked for debt payments.
I lost my job in September 2007, i lost the sharesaves but got the money back that i'd paid in which i had to use to pay bills and survival etc. Late November 2007 i managed to get another job which paid £7000 a year less, no overtime, no bonuses and an additional 40miles a day travelling extra which added to the £7000 drop in salary.
Being a single bloke (one income) with debts of over £25,000 the big drop in salary meant i could barely afford to survive on the salary and the rest of my sharesave refund got eaten up. It also affected my desire to want to work for that salary and in February 2008 i lost the job, fortunately i got another job a week later which paid a lot better but a contract job (so only earning when i worked). Due to different things i lost over £1000 by days where i couldn't work - broken finger + no car, dog needing emergency vet treatment, bank holidays etc. My car was costing a fortune in repairs where everything that could go wrong did go wrong (guessing it cost me 3k in as many years in repairs)
When it came to P45 time it was £12,000 less than my last 2 (around £20,000) plus the £7,000(ish) that lost on the shares.
After the contract job ended i got another job straight away.. perfect job it seemed, decent salary (£28,000), free meals (extra savings to add on to the salary) but a bit of a drive away. I also took in a lodger and that brought my monthly income to around 2k which gave me a light at the end of the tunnel.

As usual in my life that didn't go too well either. My lodger lost his job and instead of booting him out because he couldn't pay the rent i decided that having a lodger and money coming in when he gets a job would be easier than finding another.. That was 4 months ago so i'm £1000 down on rent and paying to keep 2 people.
On Wedesday i lost my job due to bad performance and being incapable of doing the job. (perfectly capable of doing it but the staff didn't take too well to having a new boss, refused to work and lied to my boss).

I'm currently about 35k in debt, i have no job and absolutely no idea what to do.

I have a 25k loan with Natwest at £500 a month over 6 years
Mint credit card with £3,500 balance
Barclay card with £4000 balance
MBNA card with about £1000 balance
MBNA card with about £1200 balance
Natwest card with about £300 balance
Sofa is also on credit and that's about £36 a month till July next year.

Additional outgoings are:

£35 a month mobile (still in contract)
£20 a month water bill
Electric seems to be around £60 a month (god knows how)
Gas - wasn't that much but it is winter now
car insurance £37 a month
Dog insurance - £30 a month (essential one dog had to have £600 of surgery)
pet food (2 dogs, 2 snakes, tropical fish tank) roughly £10 a month. The dogs are on a BARF diet and i get the meat free, just pay petrol to collect. Mice for the snakes cost me under £40 which will keep them going for about 6 months
Sky TV - only luxury at £40 a month
Broadband and phone rental - £17.99 a month

Due to the financial situation i have no life, i'm 34, rarely go out which means i can't find a girlfriend and I barely buy any clothes these days. Shopping is done at ASDA and mainly consists of Smart Price food. I can't remember the last time i ordered a takeaway and the last time i indulged was a few months ago when i cooked a mixed grill - with Smart Price stuff.

Any advice on where the hell i go from here?
no job so no income - what benefits would i be entitled to? i've since i was 16 and never claimed benefits before.
I probably need to take in £28k a year to survive and a lot more to start making an impact on my debts, which cuts out doing 'any old job' as i'd be working to not even survive.

I really don't want to lose the house. I was expecting it to be in negative equity as a neighbour couldn't sell theirs at asking price and had to go below what they paid due to the factory behind them. But next door but one has theirs on for more than i paid, they do have bigger gardens though and are end mews rather than mid mews which may account for the extra - or they're being optimistic with the price as another house on the street with a garage is up for less.
Again, i don't want to lose the car as i'd probably need that for work when i get another job. It's 14 years old and only worth £1100 but that needs repairs as well!

How did i get the debt? no idea! i have no luxuries apart from a big TV that was free. Most of it came from council tax on the credit card, bills on the credit card, car repairs on the credit card etc etc. I ended up using the credit card to pay the bills because i'd used my wages to pay the credit cards and needed to leave some in the bank 'just in case'.. i'm living month to month, i'm working to survive and quite frankly... i want my life back.

what's the best way to go about anything and everything?


thanks for reading and apologies for all the pointless waffle.

edit : forgot to mention... to try and get the bills down even a tiny bit i've the TV's on timers and even resorted to not flushing the loo after every pee.. that's how bad it is! even sitting here typing in the light of the TV, fish tank and computer screen so i don't need to have a light on

Thank you for your message.

Your first step would be to try and claim some benefits to try and support you income until you are back in work.

You could also ask your mortgage lender for a payment holiday until you are back in work; as if you applied for any type of housing benefit it would take too long to come through - still worth applying for though.

With regards your unsecured creditors these are not your priority at the moment, I would suggest that you cancel your direct debits to them and try and pay a token payment of £1 until you situation improves.

If you have any debts with your bank you will need to open a basic bank account at a bank where you have no debts. Once you have some money coming in this will need to be paid into your new account and any priority direct debit will need to be debited from there.

If you would like to come for an appointment to discuss this in more detail, please call 0800 138 1111. We would be able to do a full benefits check for you. Alternatively you could contact your local job centre for a benefits check.

LilMeNo1

We are with the CCCS and we are meant to pay 180 a mnth bt cn only afford 2 pay 100, we keep receiving our statements and they have only sent 80 pounds worth of the money out, why is this as it is
accumilating n we are really struggling and i am loosin my job 31st march 2009 due to our company contract not being renewed!!!

PLEASE HELP

robgazi

Hello:

After living with personal debts of £11,000 and in the last five years being able to secure permanent employment has been slim to none and now considering the current economic climate, I have therefore decided I wish to clear all my debts through bankruptcy. I have read the law on this matter. I understand the law. And my feelings are clear on this matter. I have no qualms as I've attempted to do the "decent" thing and with met with humiliation and rejection. (something, I'm not going to explain myself.) My only question is this please: Considering I do not have the five hundred pounds required to declare bankruptcy, is there an alternative route or some kind of funding available? Thank you.

redroo555

CCCS_Sarah wrote: »

This does sound like a breach of the Data Protection Act, you would be within your rights to try and take this further and make a formal complaint. This link will take you to the Information Commissioners Office – they deal with Data Protection issues.

Let me know how you get on with this and good luck.

Sarah

hi there,

just to say thanks for getting back to me, i will let you know how i get on!

haleygrey

I filled in the debt remedy this afternoon so hopefully I will get a response on monday. If i can be given advice on how to reduce my monthly outgoings so that I can live instead of exist, that will be an absolute godsend

Wehateourdebt

Hi Guys - I'm a first time poster - my wife and I are just about to enter in to a DMP with CCCS, and I don't nkow if student loans should be included as priority bills or not? Most of my student loans have been transferred to a company called Thesis recently - don't know if that makes a difference?

Thanks!

craigp_2

Can I just ask if payday loans can be added onto a DMP?

Thanks!

CCCS_Matthew

LilMeNo1 wrote: »

We are with the CCCS and we are meant to pay 180 a mnth bt cn only afford 2 pay 100, we keep receiving our statements and they have only sent 80 pounds worth of the money out, why is this as it is
accumilating n we are really struggling and i am loosin my job 31st march 2009 due to our company contract not being renewed!!!

PLEASE HELP

Hi there,

If you are struggling with your payments towards the DMP you really need to book a review. If you call our client support team (the number should be on your statements) they can look at your situation and discuss your options. Please don't continue to struggle, as the idea of a DMP is the amount you pay to your creditors is affordable based on the budget you draw up with the counsellor on the original appointment.

Regards,
Matthew.