Please Help

craigsr

Hello all

This is my first time posting although i have been reading posts on this site for a while. I would greatly appreciate some of the expert advice that is so freely given on this excellent site.

My mother & father have worked all of their days but unfortunatly my father has just lost his job due to work shortages in the sector he works in (he works as a driver for an agency company) this only leaves my mother meagre earnings (which total about £400 pcm plus her state pension) out of this they need to pay their rent and other household bills.

Both my mother & father owe money to a number of creditors such as credit cards, banks loans etc that they got into trouble with when they first began to have financial problems a number of years ago. When they experienced these problems they were rather foolishly advised to consult a debt management agency which they have paid £200 pcm too without missing a payment.

Obviously now this figure is going to be very hard for them to pay and would leave them virtually no money to live on at all. Can anyone advise me on what the best course of action for them to take is? All of their debts are unsecurred. My dad is 63 and my mum is 62 so both would be due for retirement in a few years. Is it worth them trying to continue to pay these debts for the next few years untill their retirement or is it best to try to stop paying them or seriously reduce their payments now rather than in a couple of years.

Many thanks for anyone that responds to this rather long message (sorry) as any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

regards
Craig

dancingfairy

Hi Craig - you've come to the right place. Firstly is your dad going to get any redunancy pay or not? I didn't quite get that from the bit about the agency- sorry. If he is entitled to it he should make sure he gets some - perhaps your local CAB would be able to inform him of this.
Secondly he needs to make sure they are both getting all the benefits they are entitled to - ie job seekers allowance, any council tax benefit/housing benefit etc - again the CAB should be able to help with this or phone the job centre and try and claim for jobseekers - I am sure they ask about housing benefit/council tax benefit as well.
I would advise your parents to contact CCCS or National Debtline or your local CAB- they need to reassess their DMP - and reduce the amount accordingly and also ditch the fee paying company and do it through one of the free organisations - they DO NOT NEED to be paying their hard earned cash to a company when the charities will do the same for FREE.
Also they will need to draw up a budget - so they can see how much spare they have every month for the DMP. There is a template on Makesense of cards.com - obviously they need to see how much there is left to offer creditors after all the bills have been paid.
Also see if you can get them to look around for deals - as they are in their 60's they could well be paying over the odds for electric /gas that sort of thing as people of that generation seems reluctant to shop around and get the most for their money.
Anyway hope that gives you a starting point.
df

sheba

needing more mse opinions bump!!

gfplux

Have a look:- For additional advise and help why not look here http://www.cccs.co.uk/ and here www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/ They both offer help for FREE. Also here www.payplan.com/index.php

GeorgeUK

Dancingfairy seems to have covered everything there.

If their current DMP is with a fee paying organisation, they should change to a non-fee paying one such as CCCS or Payplan.

Were interest and charges stopped when they started the DMP?

Do they get a regular statement? If not they need to know how much is still owed and to make sure that the payments have been going through.

If there have been charges applied to the accounts, they may be able to reclaim these.

craigsr

Many thanks for your replies. Im not sure if they get a statement every month from their DMP, ill find out. I suggested CCCS to my dad a few years ago when these problems first began but after speaking to them they came up with rather a hefty figure for him to be paying each month (i think it was so he was able to clear all of his debt before he stopped earning).

My dad has just been layed off from a driving agency & so he is not entitled to any redundancy money. He has never received any benefits of any sort & wouldnt even know where to begin looking for information about housing benefit etc, is the CAB the best ones for him to contact or will it be the job centre?

Many thanks again.

Craig

SouthCoast

Advice from CAB on benefits can be found here:


http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/life/benefits.htm

Oldernotwiser

Tackling this from the income side, do your parents realise that if neither of them worked they could claim Pension Credit of just under £200 per week with their rent and council tax paid?

You can check this out on https://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/pensioncredit/

It would seem a better option than where they are now.

tallyhoh

Please tell your Dad to contact his job centre ASAP as they dont normally backdate. I am also including a link for them to check any entitlement to benefit.
www.entitledto.co.uk