Help & Advice needed to reduce large debts, pl

frazz

My self and my fiancee are in a really bad catch 22 please can anyone give us some advice !

My fincee has debts totalling £25,000

3 Credit Cards
1 Car Loan
1 Bank loan

We are not in default on the payments of these debts and never have been, his credit history is fairly good with his credit report showing many previous settled debts and no defaults, trouble is he's always had bother when it came to getting credit because he has the same name as his father who is in terrible defaulted debt and owe's 1000s, ofcourse up until 4 years ago they shared the same address so he found it impossible to get credit at all. Because of these initial problems all the debts that my fiancee have were the wrong choice, the interest on his credit cards are 24.4%, the interest rate on his car loan is 16% and on his bank loan its 11%, he basically never got the best deal. Between all of the debts we pay out £660 a month before bills etc and that's with paying only the minimum on the credit cards. We have no savings and although we both make enough to cover paying the debt thats all we can do.

My fiancee has seen his bank at least 3 times this year to ask for a loan that would consolidate his debts but his bank will not oblige, he has 2 credit cards with the same bank and they won't even let him transfer all of them to the one card. I have only just graduated university in July and have only been working for 10 months, The debts that I have a small in comparison with myself only owing £2000 to my student overdraft, trouble is that 6 years ago I had to hand my property back to the bank after the breakdown of my relationship with my previous partner and so underwent a "voluntry reposession". The outcome of the repossession was a debt of £19,000 which either I or my ex could be held accountable for, I was only 20 at the time and I panicked and basically did a runner, now we live in Scotland and I have been advised by my solicitor that the debt will have been "written off" so to speak because they have had no contact and no money from me in 6 years.

So we find ourselves in a catch 22 situation, we are paying our debts every month without fail or default but we cannot reduce them no matter how hard we try companies that other people can use to reduce their debts are not an option for us as we are up to date and can afford them, I cannot apply for a joint loan with my fiancee which would definately help in his being accepted for one because I am too scared of the repocussions from my repossession 6 years ago despite what my solicitor advised.

There is plenty of help out there for people with debts like ours who have fallen behind, but is there any help out there for people like us ?, we can't afford to buy a house because we could never afford a mortgage on top of the debts we have just now, we can't afford much at all and thats the real stress, we only seem to be working to pay debts that never seem to be reducing, please please help us !

Any and all advice is very much appreciated.

Kind regards
Frazz.

frazz

I forgot to metion that my fiancee has applied to 6 different credit card companies for a 0% balance transfer for his credit card/cards and has been turned down flat on all occassions, he's also tried getting a personel loan of £7000 to pay off the credit cards but again he was turned down, this is why we need the advice, no one seems to be able to help us.

johannamse

Hi Frazz,

It appears that you cannot get any consolidation / cheaper deals. You have tried many avenues. Face the debts head on as they are. Stop searching for solutions from other places. All the time and energy that you are using up pinning your hopes on the bank manger / 0% cc you could be making an inroad into the debts. I know, I know, you have no spare cash, but please keep reading. Myself and my partneer were in your situation in Jan this year. We thought we had no spare money etc. After ALOT of effort you can free up cash. There are many threads on this board (debts), spend some time reading down the list, from people who have "found" money they did not think they had. Keep your heads down, create a spreadsheet, cut back, cut back, cut back. Make 2005 YOUR consolidation year. You and your partner are in control. The interest rates you are paying are not ideal, but you are by no means in a terrible situation. Trust me, if you put the effort in, you will get out of this.

Another thing...the best thing you can do is get Martin;s book. It's only £6 I think, and it will REALLY help. I hope I have not been too harsh on you, I just see how we were for so long. Don't rely on your Bank Manager, rely on yourselves. Just wait and see, give it a couple of years and they'll all be ringing you up again, offering you the good deals!!

Martinslovechild

Martin's book is available here.

Also, you need to contact the National Debtline to see whether they can help. According to other posters, they have been very helpful and useful in securing a path forwards for people.

Their website is available here or they can be contacted on 0808 808 4000.

Please - call them.

frazz

Many thanks for your comments but I have already combined my gas & electric, I have already changed to talk talk with the carphone warehouse and we have already cut back we havnt been out anywhere together as a couple for 3 months now, and were not even getting each other xmas pressies to cut back even more. We have paid off the small credit card that we had and now only have the 2, however at the rate of intrest that we pay and utalizing any spare cash that we can muster it will take us 2 and a half years just to pay the smaller of the 2 credit cards, whilst the other would just be minimum payment until then and then add anothor further 3 years after that to pay the larger card off. His loan although very heafty every month is due to finish in May 2008 as is the car so we could struggle on paying them because at least they end at some point. Its all very well saying just make this year your consolidation year but in reality its far from the case it will take 5-6 years, that bear in mind will be 5-6 years where we have to struggle, go without and god forbid anything should happen to our car or either of us had to be off work for any length of time.

My fiancee only gets statutory sick pay and this year when he was off his work for 7 weeks with a broken wrist it nearly ruined us if not for the help of our family and a lucky spell of overtime for me, if that happened again we would be knackered, despite having an income protection plan, that only kicks in after 13 weeks.

So for the next 5-6 years while we "hammer" the debt as it where I will have to make 100% sure that I don't fall pregnant and we definately can't even consider moving home or buying a house, lets hope our landlord never changes his mind about having us as tennents !

My fiancee job pays pretty poorly, the guy works 7 days a week 12 hour shifts for the best part of 7 months of the year, the rest of the year he is expected to get by on £124.00 a week basic wage, his job is seasonal and involves fish, but hes not a fisherman so no big pay packets just a fairly average wage when he's on season, thats where its difficult, I ve only started full time work 10 months ago and so we were never able to budget, to spread out his wages in the busy season to help them last over the poor season which can often run March right through till the end of July. In March he will drop to just £600 per month in wages take into consideration, his debt is more than that and even if you add my wages with everything else that we have to pay out a total of 14 other bills we will be lucky to keep on top of things.

So you see I am not looking for easy way out, we have to pay this debt we both know that and like everyone else say's you should we are trying to recognize that we are 1 step away from being in real difficulty should anything go wrong and we are trying to address anything and everything that we can do to remedy this situation. My fiancee is looking for another job but where we stay they are few and far between, especially for a bloke with no qualifications and little skill but manual labour.

I thank you for your comments I just wanted to let you know in more detail of our situation so that you may realise its not as easy as it sounds to take the bull by the horns and just pay it off.

Kind regards
Frazz.

frazz

Martins Love Child

Thanks for the help I have e-mailed the national debt helpline hopefully they will be able to help. Ive also phoned our local CAB and their sending us a debt pack. Anything else that anyone could suggest we do ?, anyone else that we could get in touch with ?

Kind regards
Frazz.

Martinslovechild

Frazz,

I would suggest phoning the National Debtline rather than (or maybe aswell as) emailing them.

According to their website,

When you call us you will speak to one of our trained advisers who will discuss your circumstances with you. We may need to ask you a number of questions, to ensure that the advice we give you is accurate. We will outline the options available to you and the pros and cons of the options that you have.
Once you have decided on a course of action we will explain to you how to take it forward.

All our calls are treated in the strictest confidence and we will not make any judgments on your situation.
You do not have to give us your personal details - you can remain anonymous if you wish.
If you need further advice after your first call, you are welcome to ring us again.
To protect our callers' confidentiality we do not use British Telecom's "caller display" equipment so we cannot see your number when you ring us. We also have a permanent block on the "caller return" service. Therefore, if we ring you back our number will not be announced as the last number to ring you to anyone dialling 1471.
Your phone calls may be listed on an itemised bill, so bear this in mind if someone else may see your phone bill.
Calls are welcome via the "Typetalk" service.
We can also use an interpreter service called Language Line, allowing us to immediately access professional telephone interpreters in any of 100 languages. Interpreters are available around the clock and can be reached in just a couple of minutes to accurately translate what you and the adviser are saying to each other.

This way, you may be able to get your message/points across much more clearly and also today while you're thinking about all of this.



I also recommend getting hold of a copy of Martin Lewis' book The Money Diet. It's the best £6 you'll ever spend - trust me!!

johannamse

You are clearly not looking for the easy way out. By posting now, as you say, before things could potentially get worse you are being very concientious (?). What I meant was whilst searching for a way to reduce the interest your hopes keep getting raised and then dashed. Living on this rollercoaster is very stressful.

One of the worst things about being in such vast debt is the hopelessness of it and the lack of control that you feel, especially when you are good customers. What I was trying to say was, to get back some of the control, make your own plan. If you compile a spreadsheet, and list all the changes you have both made to your lives (phones, gas etc etc), and remain good customers in the next 6 months, you should then approach your bank manager again. You say that you are good customers and take all the details with you, to show how savvy you have become, and how much you care, he should help you. You will have then been working for 18 months and you have already paid off another credit card compared to the last time you spoke to him. After getting a cc off of him, in another 6m you could then apply for one off another 0% or low%.

I did not mean to make you angry. I am sorry.

frazz

oh no no no, I am sorry, didn't mean to appear angry ! ;D Ive printed out the budget guide from here and filled it all in, I ve also compiled a monthly budget sheet so we will give it another go in 2-3 months time, thanks for your advice, we do appreciate it. The card that we paid of was a barclycard, now it wasnt a big balance, or a big credit limit for that matter but I did notice in another post that barclaycard are offering 2% or there abouts on balance transfers to their original customers, so were going to give them a phone as the balance on our smallest BOS card is £2756 and the credit limit that we have on that card is £500, but at least its all available and been paid in full, hopefully fingers crossed barclaycard will let my fiancee do a super balance transfer, even if they allow him to transfer £1000, we could concentrate in putting all our extra cash to paying it off then hopefully when barclaycard have another deal on balance transfers be able to take over the remainder, that would at least be one card with killer interest gone, that would make a big difference to us.

I also wanted to ask if anyone can help ?, I applied recently for a barclycard (decided that after 6 years I'de try to see how my credit standing was and try to help alieviate my fiancee's cc problems) Ive been accepted and although its just a small limit I am not intending as such to use it, more a sort of pay for shopping, then pay it off at the end of every month so as to build up a decent reputation with barclaycard, my goal in all this was to be able to transfer some of the balance of my fiancees high interest card/cards, but I wanted to ask...Will barclaycard let me transfer part of his balance ?, we are getting married in November (No were not paying a penny my aunt is very very kind as paying for everything !) would I be better to wait till November to try to do this ?

Another quick question please....My fiancee has access to his credit report online with experian and it looks absolutely fine, all green with plenty of debts showing as having been settled without ever being in default, what would be the major factor in his not being able to get a 0% transfer ?, we have lived at the same address for over 4 years, hes been full time employed with the same company for 9 years and theres no "bad" credit as it where associated with our addy ?

Thanks guy's...Really do appreciate it.

johannamse

Will barclaycard let me transfer part of his balance ?,

Yes, We do this all the time and we are not married. Although never with Barclaycard.

Martinslovechild

My fiancee has access to his credit report online with experian and it looks absolutely fine, all green with plenty of debts showing as having been settled without ever being in default, what would be the major factor in his not being able to get a 0% transfer ?, we have lived at the same address for over 4 years, hes been full time employed with the same company for 9 years and theres no "bad" credit as it where associated with our addy ?

It could well be worth writing a quick letter to the card company concerned telling them that you've examined your credit report and everything appears to be in order, never missed a payment etc, asking if they will reconsider their decision.

The other reason could be the total amount of credit currently available to your partner in proportion to his salary. If too high, then they may have refused based on the risk of default.