DMP Mutual Support Thread (Part 6)

pinkpower

Just a quick update Egg have accepted the DMP for my loan - just waiting to hear from them about the CC.

smcshane

Hi all,

After my review with CCCS last week and my payments increasing I thought it would be nice to write to all my creditors to let them know, (cccs only recontact them if the payments go down apparently and just forward the increased payments).

As a result of this, after 4 months of settling down I have had Citicards back on the phone (these are the only ones who havent accepted) saying they will accept if I pay an extra £6/month, great I thought and promptly told the person that my payments would be going by more than this in November and I had written to them to advise. But, thats not good enough to put me on a long term plan and stop interest, I needed to increase the payment by £6 this month via debit card.

Luckly, my OH was listening to the conversation and made me see sense so I very politely told him that I would not be making a debt card payment as I didnt wish them to have my card details and to contact CCCS to confirm new payment details.

It just annoys me that I thought I was doing a positive thing letting all creditors now and it leads to this. So, I am not going to hassle citicards in the future by sending them update letters unless something goes drastically wrong.

All, other creditors seem to be plodding along nicely and as I said at the beginning of the month it is so nice to see my debt starting to come down.

Take care all

Sx

twoflower169

Question for Geoffmr1:

What is a CCA and what is an unenforceable agreement?

I'm sure the answer is somewhere on the forums, but having spent the last 2hrs putting all our stuff together for our dmp to send to cccs in the morning my brain cant take anymore and you explain things well!

Thx T x

ianmak

TF,

I'll let Geoff or someone else answer this more fully, as I haven't personally gone down that route, but...

CCA - Consumer Credit Agreement. Generally what you sign when you agree to a loan or credit card. They can be incorrrectly completed or worded, or not even signed!

This leads us onto...

Unenforceable Agreements - See above, if the above agreement, that you can request a copy of from your Creditor is incorrect, then it 'could' be deemed unenforceable. It's a very big 'could' though, as Geoff and others I'm sure will attest to...

But, don't worry about this until you get your DMP stuff off, then you can think about CCAs!

As I say, Geoff and others can explain better than I can, but thought I would post as I'm still up!

geoffmr1

twoflower169 wrote: »

Question for Geoffmr1:

What is a CCA and what is an unenforceable agreement?

I'm sure the answer is somewhere on the forums, but having spent the last 2hrs putting all our stuff together for our dmp to send to cccs in the morning my brain cant take anymore and you explain things well!

Thx T x

Hi twoflower,

The answer is exactly as Ianmak described. CCA is a consumer credit agreement which you would have supposedly agreed to when taking out a credit card or personal loan (note if the loan is over £25000 there are different laws I believe).

Again as Ian has said unenforceable agreements are pretty much a minefield no matter what people tell you. A lot of agreements pre 2006 (or April 2007, I can't remember which) are supposedly unenforceable, most were incorrectly worded or it could even be classed as invalid because it has one word missing, there are just too many reasons for it to be classed as unenforceable for me to list here. However as stupid as it seems success or failure to get an agreement written off is basically a toss of a coin, if you get a judge who doesn't understand the law (very possible as most county court judges were previously solicitors who dealt with a specific area of law) then you're likely to lose & these creditors will add thousands on for costs. You can obviously appeal but again that takes time & money, I just felt I had nothing left to lose when I fought them.

The upside of fighting unenforceable agreements is that creditors also know it's a minefield so they are also reluctant to go to court incase the decision goes in your favour. That means you can claim costs (not the same amount as they can unfortunately) & the agreement could be written off costing them potentially thousands.

Personally I always think it's worth getting a copy of your CCA as it only costs a £1 & then you can see where you stand. Just because the CCA may be unenforceable it doesn't mean you have to stop paying (I never have). It justs put you in a favourable position to negotiate & try to get them to accept the DMP offer, which is after all what everyone on here wants.

As Ian rightly pointed out don't get too bogged down with all this CCA stuff at the start, get your DMP up & running first. It may be that all your creditors accept your offer of repayment in which case there is no need to rock the boat so to speak. I would always recommend looking at reclaiming any charges or PPI but don't look for a fight until its a necessity.

Hope this helps.

saskia1

geoffmr1!!

have just read your post whilst having a very boring time at work - but now feel - inspired?? sorry if thats too cheesy but it really has helped me get my mind back on track.

was completely stressing about one of my creditors (lloyds) 8k debt, dmp payment £55pm & they have now passed to solicitors. have called them twice and written but they are refusing to accept £55.

wasn't going to 'bother' with asking for my cca agreement - but you know what - i am now. this was my first cc- way back in 1996 so what have i got to lose.

so thanks geoffmr1 - you've made my day!!

sas

geoffmr1

saskia1 wrote: »

geoffmr1!!

have just read your post whilst having a very boring time at work - but now feel - inspired?? sorry if thats too cheesy but it really has helped me get my mind back on track.

was completely stressing about one of my creditors (lloyds) 8k debt, dmp payment £55pm & they have now passed to solicitors. have called them twice and written but they are refusing to accept £55.

wasn't going to 'bother' with asking for my cca agreement - but you know what - i am now. this was my first cc- way back in 1996 so what have i got to lose.

so thanks geoffmr1 - you've made my day!!

sas

Thank you Saskia for the lovely words.

I think offering £55 on 8k is more than reasonable when you don't have more money to give, some creditors are just plain stupid.

The fact your agreement dates back to 1996 would seriously suggest it will come back unenforceable, there are hardly any that far back which aren't. Of course you could be one of the unlucky ones but I doubt it, half the time they don't even have the agreements from that time or at least can't find them on the microfiche which they used at that time.

Make sure you get your CCA request off before the solicitors act, it's not that you cannot do anything afterwards if they do start court action but it just makes the whole process somewhat easier (I found that out the hard way with HFC).

the_tooth_fairy

At last payment showed up on Justabank, my total debt now is a mere 61k!!
Can't wait till they start giving it out, Mint have called endlessly, got a letter from them today saying I should call them URGENTLY to discuss my a/c.

Rang Payplan for advice, they haven't called back. I sent Mint the token payment last month and they gave me a default notice!

Typical when the day started well!!

geoffmr1

the_tooth_fairy wrote: »

At last payment showed up on Justabank, my total debt now is a mere 61k!!
Can't wait till they start giving it out, Mint have called endlessly, got a letter from them today saying I should call them URGENTLY to discuss my a/c.

Rang Payplan for advice, they haven't called back. I sent Mint the token payment last month and they gave me a default notice!

Typical when the day started well!!

At least you have your plan up & running. It will get easier in time but unfortunately the start is generally the worst part. It takes time for all the creditors departments to get on the same page, but once that happens it does all calm down. Never speak to them on the phone if you can help it because they do record all calls & you don't want to say something that they can later twist.

Just write to their customer services department & tell them you want all correspondence in writing & that you will not talk to them over the phone. Tell them they are putting undue stress on yourself & your family which generally does the trick because they don't want you to sue them for harassment.

the_tooth_fairy

Well, I take it back about Payplan, they just called to discuss letter from Mint. They said basically just sit tight as the offers of repayment are about to be dispatched and (as Geoffmr1 says) don't talk to them on the phone as things will settle down.

Thanks for advice,

ttf