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StepChange_James

symesd wrote: »

Hi James thanks for your reply, when I am speaking about re-mortgaging this is not to pay off debts but to combine my current Mortgage (Britannia - £468) and Second Mortgaged (Welcome Finance £392) to reduce these payments each month - making more money available to pay off debts. I am currently paying £860 just for my mortgage - if this could be reduced to about £547 (which is what we would be paying if all 1 mortgage on same interest rate) I would have about £300 extra to pay off debts.

For example - If Britannia would add our £20k to our existing mortgage it would cost approx £79 a month -

We have been with them for over 7 years and have even managed to make overpayments to them for 14 months previously & never been in arrears, so they know we are good payers, but they will not look at us due to our history - Why do financial institutions not take into consideration your current circumstances - our debts are from 7 years ago.

Its just so frustrating - the financial institutions just reply on computers and credit history and ignore current situations and history with them.

I have now been in a permanent job for almost 5 years and want to get my debts sorted but paying very expensive interest rates is crippling us - people with good credit get the best rates I know but would it not make sense to help people like us pay off the debts if we can prove that the bad credit is "history" not current ...

Ah, I think I might have got the wrong end of the stick. Obviously rearranging secured debts to make them cheaper is a good idea IF you can get the mortgage, which I appreciate can be very tricky these days.

StepChange_James

needhelpnow wrote: »

My mother is 81 and has got herself into a mess with credit cards and loans (mostly taken out to support my brother but that's another matter!). She has now been diagnosed with cancer and has just given me an envelope of statements!

She lives in the Wirral, is there any help she could get preferably by someone going to see her (or I could organise for her to go somewhere). I suspect she is probably due benefits as well but has never claimed anything.

Hello,

I’m sorry to hear about your mother’s illness.

We don’t have a service where we make home visits but there are a few ways we might be able to help. Firstly we have an online advice tool called Debt Remedy (https://www.cccs.co.uk/ref/drcu) which can be accessed anywhere with an internet connection.

It gives the same expert advice we give over the phone and provides a customised advice booklet that will go through all the available options. I don’t want to be presumptuous but if your mother isn’t internet savvy then someone else could go through debt remedy on her behalf providing they knew how much she owes to her debts and what her income and expenditure usually is.

The alternative would be that we could give advice over the phone. Again, if your mother gave verbal permission to the Helpline Advisor they would be able to speak with someone else on her behalf, so she wouldn’t have to go through the whole advice process herself.

We also have a welfare benefits team that can do full benefits checks and advise on what help might be available for your mother (off the top of my head I think Pension Credit and Council Tax Benefit would be worth looking into – but they can look at everything). Our number is 0800 138 1111 and we are open 8am-8pm Monday to Friday.

Hope this helps.

James

StepChange_James

Hi everyone,

As some of you may know, we’re changing our name to StepChange Debt Charity on Monday. You can read more about the name change here: http://moneyaware.co.uk/2012/10/stepchange-debt-charity-a-step-forward/. We want to help more people out of problem debt, so we’ve changed to a more memorable name to help us achieve this.

As part of this change we’re upgrading our website, which will mean it’ll be offline tomorrow (Saturday 3rd November) from 8am. We hope to have a sparkly new website up and running again by Saturday evening and will have some exciting new features to tell you about once it’s ready.

We’ll still be providing the same expert debt advice as before and on Monday we’ll be back here answering your questions as usual.

Have a good weekend,

CCCS_James (soon to be StepChange_James)

I_am_in_debt

:oHi

I am new to this site and I am sorry if this is in the wrong section (I have no idea to start my own thread!)

I am at war with the halifax at the moment.

I started in a Debt Management Plan in November last year and been paying one of the debts a credit card off monthly.

It was only until last month I was checking how much I had paid off the balance so far to find I was paying PPI payment :mad: to my horror!! I made a claim etc... only to be refused!! :mad: and I then asked at least for a refund to for the period I have been in a debt management plan for as effectively I have paid circa £800 since last year off the balance and it is now lost and gone into PPI payments so I have lost this... where do I stand? surely this is not right or fair considering I am in a DMP, I am struggling as it is and to think I am back to square one with the balance of this credit card is heartbreaking... of course the Halifax do not care one bit and refuse to even refund this money.

Please any advise would be most helpful.

montymum

Hi
I have about 35k of debt. I have some money coming soon but not enough to pay for all of this. I've been reading loads of stuff about making offers to credit card companies, but as I am not on a DMP will they even consider my offer?
As I have such high debts and a shared large mortgage, my credit rating is Fair and so I can't seem to get a new 0% card and am nervous of applying in case I am rejected and so will make the credit rating bad again.

Any advice would be appreciated!

purplekirsty

Hello
Just wondered if anyone could offer advice?
We currently have debts of around £50k from our time as a students and from a house sale (had to sell our house to move for my husbands job but lost a lot of money on it). We now dont own a house, dont have any assets - 2 cars but their combined worth is no more than £1,500.
Our income is about £3,500 a month and we can just make ends meat. Our main problem is a loan we had with the house (Northern Rock) the interest on it is through the roof but they will not do anything about it, and we cannot get anyone else to take it on its £30k with about 27 years left to run!
We have a son who is 22 months and another on the way (due April 2013) and so our situation is going to change next year with me being on maternity leave and then another mouth to feed and put into childcare, and we know we will not be able to afford to pay for everything.
We have been looking at DBP and IVAs but not sure what would be best? And whether we should start it now or wait until April? Seems silly to wait until things are dire... But if we started now could we change it when things get worse in April onwards?
Thanks for reading, any advice would be appreciated as feeling very stressed and disapointed in ourselves for getting into this situation

TerryHu

Hi I was wondering if you can give me any help regarding my debt.
I earn 1950 p/m after tax and also have a ltd company where I take about 600 per month in dividends although that money is starting to run out.
Anyway Im struglling with the amount of debt I have although have never missed a payment on any loans etc.
I have the following monthly outgoings
Personal Loan- 177
Personal Loan- 46
Business loan- 216
Credit Card1- 100
Car loan - 133 (this is in my father in laws name though as we were refused credit so we pay him back monthly)
Credit Card2-65
Credit Card 3- 28 in my partners name
Overdraft charges- 45
Mortgage- 553
Home Ins-40
Car-60
Student loan-26
Life Ins- 21
Tv/Internet/Telep- 60
Mobile phone- 60 stuck in two year contract for our phones
Council Tax- 120
Gas/electricty -105
Out total debt is just under 30000
Basically our outgoings on the above is nearly 1900 On top of all that I have the usual other stuff food petrol and we have two kids and my wife doesnt work at the moment as they are both under 3.
Anyway my business is not doing that great at the moment hence the reason I back full time employed and when the money in the company runs out we wont have enough to cover our monthly outgoings. I really dont want to get in a credit agreement as this house is not big enough and eventually once we are out of debt we will be looking for a new mortgage and I dont want this to affect my credit.
Also our credit rating isnt great so we cant balance transfer to cheaper credit cards etc.
Is there anything I should or could be doing?
Thanks

StepChange_James

I_am_in_debt wrote: »

:oHi

I am new to this site and I am sorry if this is in the wrong section (I have no idea to start my own thread!)

I am at war with the halifax at the moment.

I started in a Debt Management Plan in November last year and been paying one of the debts a credit card off monthly.

It was only until last month I was checking how much I had paid off the balance so far to find I was paying PPI payment :mad: to my horror!! I made a claim etc... only to be refused!! :mad: and I then asked at least for a refund to for the period I have been in a debt management plan for as effectively I have paid circa £800 since last year off the balance and it is now lost and gone into PPI payments so I have lost this... where do I stand? surely this is not right or fair considering I am in a DMP, I am struggling as it is and to think I am back to square one with the balance of this credit card is heartbreaking... of course the Halifax do not care one bit and refuse to even refund this money.

Please any advise would be most helpful.

Hello and welcome to the forum,
If your PPI claim has been turned down and you are not happy with their reasons then the next step is to escalate the complaint to the financial ombudsman. Here’s a link that will explain the process of complaing to the ombudsman: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/ppi-loan-insurance#step4.

I suspect you have already done this, but cancelling the PPI from the card now will at least stop it being added to the balance.

It does sound infuriating but the ombudsman will be able to take an impartial view of the situation and give you a final answer on whether you can get a refund.

Hope this helps.

James

StepChange_James

montymum wrote: »

Hi
I have about 35k of debt. I have some money coming soon but not enough to pay for all of this. I've been reading loads of stuff about making offers to credit card companies, but as I am not on a DMP will they even consider my offer?
As I have such high debts and a shared large mortgage, my credit rating is Fair and so I can't seem to get a new 0% card and am nervous of applying in case I am rejected and so will make the credit rating bad again.

Any advice would be appreciated!

You don’t need to be on a DMP to negotiate settlements with your debts but generally creditors will only consider settlement offers on what they consider to be “bad debts” which means that the account has gone into arrears. If you are up to date it is quite unlikely that your creditors will be willing to write some debts off, but obviously there is no harm in asking.

There is no way to know whether applying for a 0% card would be accepted, but you are right to say that applying for credit can itself harm your credit rating. Generally speaking the cards with the best offers expect the most from their applicants in terms of credit ratings because they don’t want to take a risk.

Kind regards

James

StepChange_James

purplekirsty wrote: »

Hello
Just wondered if anyone could offer advice?
We currently have debts of around £50k from our time as a students and from a house sale (had to sell our house to move for my husbands job but lost a lot of money on it). We now dont own a house, dont have any assets - 2 cars but their combined worth is no more than £1,500.
Our income is about £3,500 a month and we can just make ends meat. Our main problem is a loan we had with the house (Northern Rock) the interest on it is through the roof but they will not do anything about it, and we cannot get anyone else to take it on its £30k with about 27 years left to run!
We have a son who is 22 months and another on the way (due April 2013) and so our situation is going to change next year with me being on maternity leave and then another mouth to feed and put into childcare, and we know we will not be able to afford to pay for everything.
We have been looking at DBP and IVAs but not sure what would be best? And whether we should start it now or wait until April? Seems silly to wait until things are dire... But if we started now could we change it when things get worse in April onwards?
Thanks for reading, any advice would be appreciated as feeling very stressed and disapointed in ourselves for getting into this situation

Hi,

Thanks for posting. I think it would be best to get some advice now, based on your current situation as we can always amend your details in April when the baby arrives (congratulations by the way).

There are some situations where a DMP is best and some where an IVA is, so without more of your information it is hard to say which would suit you best. We can give you advice on this though, as we provide both IVAs and DMPs we can give you an impartial opinion on these as well as all the other debt solutions.

The first thing to do is visit our online debt advice service Debt Remedy (http://www.stepchange.org/msehelp) to help you find a solution to your debt problem quickly.

Debt Remedy will assist you in completing a financial statement with information on your household, employment, income, expenditure and debts. From this the service will automatically determine your options.

To help you fill in the form, it’s best to gather together information about:
• Your income
• Your expenditure
• The creditors you owe money to

You’ll receive a downloadable advice booklet providing a tailored solution for you based on your current circumstances and advice on ways you may be able to improve your situation.

If you’re not confident with computers or would like to speak to an advisor then you’re welcome to ring our Helpline on 0800 138 1111 (free including from mobiles). We’re open Monday to Friday 8am - 8pm and Saturdays 9am – 3pm.

If you phone us it may be possible to refer you directly to a counsellor for immediate advice. Alternatively, we will arrange for an appointment to be booked at a time convenient for you.

Regards

James