dmp worries

eastwick

Hello all,
I am new to this but would appreciate any help and advice please. I have made initial contact with CCCS and it looks like a DMP will possible but I have some worries and I am finding it hard to talk about them. Our financial situation became bad in April this year but we have struggled on, however things are much worse now and I'm finding it hard to sleep. We have large debts incurred to help out our family and unfortunately things are really bad for them due to ill health and the recession and we cannot carry on any longer. We have only small mrtgage which we can't use to help us as we are too near retirement (both in our 60's). I am worried that our creditors, mainly banks and major credit cards, could force us to sell our home. Could this still happen if we did a DMP?

Any feedback or advice would great.
Thankyou.

Nargleblast

Well done for taking that first step. If you have a lot of equity in your home then creditors might be interested but I think you are a long way off that point just yet. In order to force a sale of your home they would have to take you to court, and it's unlikely a court would sanction such a thing if you have arrangements through CCCS to repay your debts. Maybe some of the legal beagles on here can advise further? Usually, once a DMP is up and running, creditors accept the monthly payments and stop adding charges and interest. It can take a fair bit of time before they all do this, though, and you will continue to get stroppy letters and phone calls for a while before they realise they are flogging a dead horse and will not get more out of you than you can afford. CCCS will advise you on how to deal with such correspondence.

pepe2008

A dmp is a much better idea than an IVA for a start. Trying to take a property is very very expensive and unless you own a huuuge amount to a single Creditor is very unlikely.

I am in a similar situation. The dmp will be designed to be within your means, as long as you maintain it you should have no problems.

Being on a dmp with a reputable provider such as CCCS gives your case some 'weight' with your Creditors and they will ( eventually in some cases its true to say!) agree and stop pestering you.

Keep us in the picture.

Deep_In_Debt

Hi

I'm on a dmp with CCCS and have a lot of equity in my home. So far in the 2 years I've been on my dmp not one creditor has threatened anything against my home or suggested charging orders. Maybe I just got lucky.

Phone calls do stop after a while, you just have to ride the storm. I get the occasional letter which just gets filed in the "shredding" bin. Phone calls stopped a long time ago when they realised I gave as good as I got!

Good luck.

eastwick

many thanks for your replies, they are very reassuring. we will take time this weekend to sort all our debts and hopefully be able to arrange a DMP. thankyou it is good to know there are people out there like us to talk to

Nargleblast

Let us know how you get on - you will feel a lot better once you start tackling the debt problem.

crispycornflake

Hi eastwick,
Myself and other half are just starting a dmp with cccs and are sharing your worries, I am sure we must have the biggest debt on the planet but at least we are tackling it. It is normal to feel uncertain and scared but at the end of the day you can only pay what you can afford. Keep posting and let us know how you get on. We have just received our dmp paperwork but I have already been on the phone to cccs to revise the payment so we now have to wait for new paperwork (i realised our expenditure was too low and would'nt be able to manage). They were fine about this and told me not to worry. Good luck with everything.;)

eastwick

hello all and thanks for your info. My head is racing with all this. Most of my debt is with Barclays loans and cards should I open an account with another
bank before I start all this off and also how long does setting up the DMP take.

Nargleblast

You need to open a new current account with a bank that you have no existing connection to (no loans or credit cards). If you are already behind with any payments, or you know your credit rating is poor, you will have difficulty getting an account with a debit card. I was lucky with my timing in that I opened my new current account before defaulting on any payments, so I got an account with a debit card, but I was upfront with the new bank, saying I was starting a DMP through CCCS, and I requested an account with no OD facility. Give it a try and see. If no luck, then you will still be able to open a basic bank account with a card to get cash out and direct debit/standing order facilities, a number of banks offer this.

Re DMPs - once you agree a budget with CCCS, they will send out the paperwork for you to sign and return, together with sample letter that you can photocopy and send off to all your creditors with a small token payment. from then on you are more or less up and running, so it shouldn't take long.

Nargleblast

Look out for the DMP mutual support thread, lots of people on there are in your position.

eastwick

Thanks for the info i really appreciate your help