consumer credit cancelled

manbelow

Hi,

My partner and I have been with the 'consumer credit agency' for a few years, it started off at £150 a month, then went to £170 a month, and this year it went up to a staggering £295 a month. They reckon we were getting that much extra in tax credits, it never left us any margin for anything that might come up, like kids clothes etc...
Any way we missed a mortgage payment, so we were catching up by paying extra. our mortgage is £595.33, and it went up to £655 for 6 months.
We thought we would be up front with them and tell them, so we did, they said our account was "cancelled, saying it is not allowed under the conditions".
Now we are without a debt mangement plan, should we go back to 'Debtline' or try for an IVA.

The problem is we have 'CCJ' with 'Northern Rock' handled by Their solitor for just over £22000, paying a minimum of £54,05(CCA were paying them £108).
The rest of our debts come to about £8000, We were told you can't get an IVA for less than £15000 and the 'CCJ' will affect that total.

I don;t know were to turn to now, can I get another Debt management plan?

Sorry this is rather long, but I had to get out all of the details.

If there is anyone who could help me I would be very Grateful.

We are going to deal with a company within the next 10 days, as my creditors need to be payed, especially the CCJ, I just want to check things out before we go ahead.

Thank you very much

Phil

Nargleblast

Suggest you contact one of the debt counselling charities such as CCCS or Payplan - their advice is free, if you do a DMP with them there will be no charges. If you do an IVA through their associated companies there will of course be fees but this will all be explained to you and you will have the final decision as to which way to go. Get all your income and expenditure figures down on paper in preparation, and check out their websites - CCCS have a section where you can input all your figures and it will suggest a remedy based on those figures. Payplan may well do something similar. Either way, don't delay - the sooner you speak to someone the sooner you can get things sorted.

Deep_In_Debt

Sorry, I'm a bit confused. Did the dmp company cancel your dmp because you had to pay extra to cover your mortgage? If this is the case then they've obviously worked out your budgets etc incorrectly. Mortgage, rent etc are classed as "priority" along with council tax and utilities and should be paid before your unsecured creditors and the dmp should allow for such things.

Dump them and go with one of the organisations that nargleblast has mentioned. I don't think there is a reason why you can't go for another dmp.

manbelow

Thank you both very much for your prompt replies, it is the CCCS that cancelled our DMP, so do you think we should go with PayPlan, is their contact details at DEBTLINE..
The CCCS were not very helpful at all during the last few months, in fact they were quite rude, they wouldn't listen to reason.
I am just worried that another company will not take our case, after our experiance with CCCS.

Thanks again, it is much appreciated.
Phil

Nargleblast

You can still approach Payplan and see what they have to suggest. Citizen's Advice might help as well. Alternatively, on the Debt Free Wannabee site I think I have seen a thread about organising your own DMP, have a look and see. Lots of contributors to that forum do DMPs either solo or through companies, so can advise from their experience.

Charco_2

Dont see why you'd do your own if a company will do it for free - the banks are less likely to respond positively to you as an individual.

DMP companies will charge on average 15% a month, Payplan and CCCS get rewarded by the banks to the tune of 15% (so you dont pay it, the banks do). If you do go with one of the debt charities however, just be sure to watch over their shoulders and receive regular statements to make sure charges and interest have been frozen (actually that goes for all DMP providers).

I'm not sure the fact that the banks paying the 15% to CCCS/Payplan for your DMP is really that much better than if your paying a company the 15% each month yourself!

Example: If you have debts of £15k and you're paying a company 15% of your contribution every month for your DMP effectively your company will earn £2250 over the course of your plan if it goes all the way to getting you out fo debt! (it's not exactly that figure, it'll be a little bit more)
If however you go with CCCS or Payplan and you've got say 7 creditors, then each creditor will be paying £320 towards the cost of your DMP (not exactly either, because it'll depend on the sizes of each debt)... Now if CCCS are as busy as we keep hearing, it will take 7 weeks before you'll get a meeting with them to discuss your situation.

How long would it take (how many missed payments with charges and interest would it take) for your credit card company to increase your debt by £100 or £200? The banks are already half way to earning back the 15% they're "losing"!

I'm not saying one way is better than the other, i'm just throwing the cat among the pigeons. I just think it would be better if people actually worked this stuff out for themselves - it's all about the money at the end of the day!