Debt Relief Orders (DRO) - Information & help thread

HappyDays1980

Hi
I'm a week into my DRO being accepted and haven't heard a thing as yet, however I made a token payment to all of my creditors via Stepchange a few days before my DRO was accepted, so I expect the calls and letters to start pretty soon.
To be totally honest with you I am no longer threatened by calls from creditors, after 20 years of dealing with them I sort of know how to handle them, thanks to the help of everyone on this forum.
If they do start contacting you then just tell them about your DRO being accepted and that the Insolvency Practioner will be contacting them shortly. If they persist you can then contact your IP and let them deal with your creditors.
In the meantime get yourself a call blocker.
The best of luck if you do go for a DRO

fatbelly

I don't get a lot of feedback from my clients, and tend to think 'no news is good news'

HappyDays is right that contact from creditors is no longer a threat - there's nothing they can do now.

It is possible that your council and water company (if they are as useless as mine) could be a bit slow to take notice. Remember that any sums deducted against the debt (from attachment to earnings or deduction from benefit or any other method) after the date of the DRO must be refunded.

xHannahx

I'm just trying to work out eligibility, my debt is around £11k, hubby around £13k, joint disposable income around £90, so is that counted as £45 each, or are we no go? How do they calculate the food budget- I put down £300, but could easily be a bit either side.
Parkers value given for the car at £240-£400 for the different types of sale - private, dealer etc.

iceblink

HappyDays: Thanks for sharing the info! I was looking at call blockers the other day actually, the "CPR Call Blocker" looks like a useful little device.

Fatbelly: By date of DRO do you mean the date the OR approves it? It might take me a few weeks to scrape together the £90 so I guess my debt numbers might change slightly from the stepchange application form in that time.

Hannah: I believe that DROs are taken on an individual basis, in which case you and your hubby would qualify for two seperate ones but I'm only a beginner on this subject, so I'll leave your question to one of the experts xd

HappyDays1980

Hi
I invested in a True Call unit when I started my DMP many years ago and it was the best £80 I've ever spent. I haven't received one call from a creditor since installing it and also no annoying sales calls, every time the phone rings I know that it's somebody I want to speak to, well most of the time 😄

iceblink

HappyDays1980 wrote: »

Hi
I invested in a True Call unit when I started my DMP many years ago and it was the best £80 I've ever spent. I haven't received one call from a creditor since installing it and also no annoying sales calls, every time the phone rings I know that it's somebody I want to speak to, well most of the time 😄

Looks like a nice bit of kit, I may ask someone to get me one of those for Christmas. Hey HappyDays, I see you went through StepChange which is where I'm going, what was the timescale like for you? I'm at the stage where I completed their checklist and signed agreement and posted it back to them along with my proof of income, credit report, list of creditors etc.

Also, I think I might have posted it to the wrong place in my rush :rotfl: I sent all that to their Leeds address that's on their website, recently discovered they have several locations so I may have to chase that up later.

karazy123

I received the paperwork from stepchange that I need to fill in and send back to them it asks for proof of income. I work part time in a low paid job and recieve housing benefit to top this up will a letter from my employer detailing my weekly wage plus a bank statement detailing my housing benefit be enough as I don't recieve wage slips and wages don't go into my bank account via employer and I don't have a copy of my benefit award letter and don't know how to get a copy. Really stressed as have stopped my dmp to go with a Dro due to change in circumstances and already the vultures have started to circle again. Any help is appreciated thanks in advance.

HappyDays1980

I was surprised at how quickly it happened. I sent all of my documents to Stepchange on a Wednesday they then called on Friday and went through a few things with me on the phone, the next day I received a copy of the DRO application to check through and I then called them on Monday to confirm that everything was correct. They submitted my application on Monday afternoon and my DRO was granted on Wednesday.
So exactly a week .

I nearly made the same mistake as you, their DRO unit is in Birmingham. I'm sure they will pass it on but it may add a day or two on to your wait. May be worth giving them a call tomorrow to let them know in advance so they can chase it up for you.

HappyDays1980

Karazy 123 you should be fine with those documents, I'm Self Employed and they accepted bank statements as proof of income.
Good Luck

LEO83

Finally breath a psy of relief dro ended on 18th November... Through the help of reading and sometimes responding on this forum Iv found lots of help.

at the beginning I went through a breakup and took my son on full time which basically made me go for the dro as I wouldn't of stood a chance otherwise. Left my job as licensee when my dro was going through as I could not hold this job whilst subject to dro.

First 8 month where horrendous for me getting used to limited income the dwp taking money out of the benefits I received it was very very hard. Past 3 month I slowly started to sort things out

I applied and got accepted for a normal bank account with debit card and this has stayed open bank in question was nationwide so started to get little green marks on my credit file.

Fast forward to Nov 18th

Dro cleanup letter plus letter of insolvency stateing I had finished my dro I literally had all my letters to different creditors with the account numbers on them all ready to fire off. 12.01am on 19th November I fired of my first email to first company by 12.30am all had gone.

It's now 28th November and I literally have one default that is showing as not settled on my credit files which I will chase up this week.

It pays to get everything ready for when you finally get discharge from your dro.

I feel a lot better now knowing that these red marks are now green and my life can only improve from here.

Anyone that feels it's the end it almost certainly is not