few questions, we're a bit lost in the debt fog

mhacon

hi, I have been on the forum on and off for a few years (prior to getting married username was Iriahm). In January at 6 months pregnant I was sacked by my employer and we had to overnight cut £1500 from our family budget. I am currently trying to fight this through tribunal but its a long drawn out process with no end in sight.

We are a young family, my kiddies are nearly 3 and 3 months and i'm a stay at home mum (I ebay everything I can and with kids i'm never short of things and clothes they've grown out of!).

We have £23k of unsecured debt which, since February we have been paying £1 a month. We have been given £5k which we wanted to pay towards our debt and I followed the template settlement letters of which a few of our creditors have accepted :j but as expected, most have not. Despite them agreeing (and still accepting) our £1 a month payments, some debts have been passed to debt collection agencies who are pretty aggressive in their approach.

Am is right to keep dealing with the main creditors directly as they are still accepting our monthly payments?

we also own a flat that has been on the market for 7 months. Its in great condition, in a fab location in the city its in but the market is 6ft under. We've reduced the price as low as we can (£40k below home report valuation) to pay off the outstanding mortgage but wondered if anyone had any experience of auction? the monthly mortgage is killing us, on top of our rent (we had to leave city flat is in as husband got a new job). We have never missed a mortgage payment.

our monthly budget is fine, we have no extravagences but are comfortable and i've stripped us as low as we can go and love the moneysaving old style board for surviving on next to nothing with 2 kids.

the other thing is we don't know if we should consider an IVA or even bankruptcy? very serious I know but we are teetering on the edge and not sure how much longer our creditors will accept £1 a month.

thanks for reading and i'm sure you'll see me on here a lot more in future x

pennypusher

Hi post up an SOA an d people on here will help and give some advice.

NorthernLas

1. I would have thought that as long as you are confident that the DCA have authority to collect, you should start dealing with the DCAs (but others more knowledgable may have more experience)

2. There are letters on here which you can send to stop the DCAs phoning or threatening to call.

3. Keep the remainder of the £5k and offer it in a few months.

4. No idea on auction (can you put a reserve price on that you are happy with?)

5. Put your figures into CCCS on line debt remedy and see what it recommends re. DMP / IVA etc. There is an article on IVA and they are not suitable for everyone. There are charities CCCS / National Debtline who will not charge you for advice.

6. You can only pay what you can afford. As long as you have your budget and are paying priority debts, then if you only have £1 each then you can't pay more.