Help Required

fairydiamond

Hello everyone, I really need some help please!

My fiancee and I are helping his mother with her finances. They are a mess. She used to hide all her letters, but we've digged them all out and got her permission to open them all and write letters to all her creditors to finally sort this mess out.

She doesn't have much money left after she's paid the bills, but things we've noticed are like Gas £160 Electric £120 per month! with British Gas. Surely these are totally wrong!?

Many many debts are defaulted and have been passed around to debt companies, like a Halifax loan of £15,000 which is currently £15,808 with Wescot. The original amount was around £20,000 including insurance. Currently trying to reclaim £2,800 of PPI. Also we are trying to reclaim £4,500 of bank charges with Halifax.

We never realised everything was so bad.

Just really wanted some information on where to go to change suppliers and can you change suppliers when you are in debt with the company you are currently with?

Thanks guys.

beanielou

AFAIK you cant change suppliers while you are in arrea with current supplier.
Payments may be so high as she has had arrers with them too.

RAS

Hi

Start by digging out the latest bills and reading the meters. Do the readings tally? And check she is not being charged for the wrong units - is her meter metric or imperial and what units are used on the bills?

If the bills are correct then probably she is paying off debts and you need to know how much and when this will be sorted. It may be possible negoitiate a better deal.

However when I sorted out my mothers accounts, I found that she was overpaying DDs by about one third.

if the bills are wrong read

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/lower-energy-direct-debits

More importantly, she needs to get proper advice from a debt charity. They can advise on all options. Is she in her own house, or rented?

fairydiamond

Thanks for the help, RAS.

She owns the house, but selling it is not an option. She doesn't have the deeds and can't afford to pay for them.