Debt management plans for self employed

maxmax

hi everyone,
hope you had a great christmas!!!,
my wife and i are thinking of going down the dmp route in the new year,
ive been scanning the forums and think this is the right way forward for us and we will seek advice and help from the recognised charities,

we just have a few questions we hope you could help with,

we have about 33k in unsecured debts credit cards loans etc and are currebtly paing about 1100 per month on these

1) i am a self employed taxi driver,is it harder to be accepted on a dmp if you are self employed?

2)would our dmp be a joint or 2 single dmps

3)what does the whole dmp process involve for eg if we phoned the cccs today,how long does it take for an arrangement to be made with our creditors,

4)if we were advised to go onto a dmp,could our creditors take us to court or anything?,

we really appreciate any advice going from you guys!!!
thanks
maxmax.

Toffee_Penny

Hi Max
Welcome to the forum :beer:

I am on a DMP with OH who is self employed and in the building trade. We are with CCCS and have a joint account. OH owes more than me but all our income and expenditure is calculated as one and shared between our creditors. We found it easier to calculate this way.

I don't think your employment status makes any difference as long as you can afford the monthly payments but being self employed means your income isn't guaranteed and can go up or down so CCCS use an average figure per month. Just make sure you use a realistic figure, don't put the highest you can earn a month down, if you have a bad month you will find it hard to meet your payment. We learnt that!

CCCS usually take a few days to send out the information pack to you. You have to both sign a form for CCCS to pass on to creditors to act on your behalf and send copies of latest creditor statements so CCCS know the total debts, account numbers etc. You also have a sample letter to send to all of your creditors to inform them that you are about to start up a DMP. CCCS provide you with information on how to deal with creditors also.

The process is simple and easy, CCCS may be busy at this time of year but they are good and will set up your DMP very quickly, your first payment to them is usually by a cash slip that you take to a Post Office whilst your direct debit is being set up usually for the following month.

I wouldn't worry about court action, I always thought being on a DMP meant a ccj straight away. You will find at the start you get a lot of standard letters from the creditors demanding their money back. It is quite scary when you read them but as long as you continue to make your CCCS payment and show that you are treating your debts seriously it will be very rare that a creditor will take you to court.

We have been on our DMP for a year and a bit. We owed 13 creditors a massive 53k. Some threatened this and that but none of them have taken us for a ccj yet. There is also a DMP support thread on here and you will find many of us on DMP's who will offer advice and friendly chat when things get a bit tough.

Take care and don't worry x

maxmax

Thanks for the welcome and advice Toffee Penny,
You have made my wife and i feel a lot better about the whole process altough we are still worried about court action etc...
i seen the support threads,i will pop on there now to have a look around!
thnaks again Toffee,your a star!!!