im a newbie & in need of help & advice

fairy_girl_2

Hello, i am new on here and hope to find some help & advice

My partner & I are really struggling financially at the minute. He has had to take on two jobs which means hes working 12 hour days or more, not getting to spend time with our baby daughter & still doesnt earn enough to cover our outgoings. Its really getting us down, we dont give ourselves any luxuries at all & cut back as much as we can, where we can.

We dont want to have to go down the line of having an IVA but dont know what else to do. My partner is hoping to do a course in november that will potentially lead to a very well paid job afterwards but it costs 2k & we just dont have that sort of money.

We were thinking of just writing to the creditors / debtors and asking them if they would allow us to make a token payment for a few months but we dont have the first idea how to go about it? Is there a template letter we could download or any advice you could offer us. It will be very grately appreciated.

To top it off our council has sent us a letter to say that we are being taken to court at the start of october because we couldnt afford to pay bill of £278. They added on £30 costs. We contacted them to see if we could make a payment arrangement. They said yes but we would still incur a further £70 court costs, leaving our bill at £378 if we dont pay before the court date.

Can anyone advise us what to do please.

fairy girl

Flower08

Hi and welcome!

First of all you can pop up your SOA (statement of affairs) and some people on here could look at where you can make cut backs and the debts that you have.

Well done for taking the first steps.

gfplux

Hello fairy girl,
welcome
Make out your SOA (link - http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html ) Try not to guess at the figures, dig out the paperwork! However remember a partial completed one is better than none. It is in fact one of the most important things you will ever do to start on the road to recovery. If you want a lot of help on this forum, posting your SOA is the first and most important step. After it is done it is very easy to keep it up to date. In my opinion everyone should have an up to date SOA even if you have little or no debt. It is a great tool to manage your life with.
If you post it on the forum answer the obvious questions before they are asked so you get immediate feedback, such as :-
If you have other Income explain what it is
Mortgage – interest only or not.
What is the age of any children.
Council tax over 10 or 12 months.
Electricity and gas any arrears.
Water rates meter yes or no.
Mobiles, how many.
If your pets cost money, what are they.
good luck

Tixy

Hello Fairy Girl and Welcome to DFW

There are template letters you can use, but before you write to them including your budget (because they likely need to see an income & expenditure before they agree to reduced payments) I'd suggest you prepare and post it here first using the link gfplux gave.
That way we can advise on what they will consider excessive or luxuries. And more importantly we might be able to advise on ways you can save enough money to mean that you won't need to go down the route of token payments and potentially wreck your credit files.

Just so you know council tax is a priority debt and should be paid before any unsecured debts, in fact only mortgage/rent and food should come before council tax, everything else is a lower priority.

I'm sure we can help if you give us more info on your financial situation.

ZarZar1990

Welcome, you're in the right place :hello:
There is so much help/advice and support on this board!
From small day-to-day tips to advice on how to write to your creditors
I hope you're okay
Good luck! I know you'll be fine!
:T

Little_Mis-spent

Hi & welcome :hello:

You'll get some great advice on here. Post up your SOA as previous posters have said and you'll get loads of people coming up with all kinds of ways to help. I'm new on here myself so I may not have a lot of advice to give yet but I wish you all the best and know that things only get better once we start dealing with them! You've taken the all important first step already by posting

xx

fairy_girl_2

Thank you all for your advice and I certainly will do up a SOA as soon as possible to get ourselves above water again.

I'm glad I joined this site. x

dancingfairy

Hi. Try not to worry with regards to the Council Tax. Easier said than done I know . The system is not always as helpful as it can be and it sounds about right from what you have said that they are following their procedure - yep helpful I know. First step is to take you to court for a Liability Order - this is in effect a rubber stamping procedure and basically the court wants to know do these people owe the debt and have they paid, that's it really , no if, no buts, no excuses no reasons - just plain facts. There are likely to be loads, hundreds possibly of people being taken to court at the same time as you and there is little point you turning up - you may get lucky and get someone to hear your case but it really is a rubbing stamping exercise and there is little point you turning up.
This is sort of like a safety net for the Council, their insurance policy really and I think partly to prove they are serious and not letting their grip slip on public finances.
This invariably does lead to the council adding costs on and the ones detailed above sound about right sadly.
After the liability order has been granted this efectively gives the Council Powers to chase the debt - they can send bailiffs, do attachment of earnings or attachments of benefits, and I think they can also come to arrangements with the understanding that if you default they can chase you further (bit hazy on this bit so bear with me). There is also the possibility of a charging order I think (but I don't think Councils bother with this as they can't get their money back quick enough).
A Liability order will not affect your credit rating as it is a judegment in a magistrates court not a county court so you needn't worry about that.
Waaaay down the line there is the threat of prison - this is generally reserved for the hard core persistent non-payers, there are various steps to get to this though and this is for those that refuse to pay anything not those that are struggling - imagine the publicity the Council would get if they tried to send someone with a young family to prison who was struggling becasue of their circumstances - they aren't going to go there - trust me.
Anyway - you should hopefully be able to get the council to make an arrangement with you to take money out of wages or benefits, but obviously if you can stop it getting this far and charges added on then that would be a better option.
I would do your SOA and then people will help you get a plan of action in place.
df

dancingfairy

Sorry that post was so epic but hopefully you are a little less scared now of the court proceedings.
df

fairy_girl_2

Yes thank you. I am at little less scared but we know ourselves that we shouldn't have let it get this far. I think we just kept burying our heads in the sand but now its caught up with us and bit us. So we knew we had to do something about it to help change our lives and make us happy again.

dancingfairy

The first thing to do as has been said by several people already is to do a thorough SOA - you need to get all the facts on the table in black and white so you can see what you are dealing with. In fact the debt charities will need somthing similar from you as well.
If you don't want to post it up on here - the general advice is to shop around for everything - all bills etc, make sure you are getting all benefits you are entitled to - oh and don't be afriad to seek help from a free to use charity/organisation such as CCCS/your local CAB/National Debtline etc - never ever pay for advice or service such as this.
df