DMP Questions

alamaya

Hi All,
Sorry to be a pain to you all but very nervous about this so please bear with me.

I have a lot of debt. £47k to be exact. I am due to sell my house shortly and move back in with parents.

Doing this i will have an extra £150 a month for debt which still leaves us with 4 years to clear debts but as i am currently pregnant gets me back to my familys hometown.

I am currently able to pay £70 extra where i live at the moment but my SOA has been cut that short it would be wiped by CCCS' payment advisers. Example. we no longer have hair cuts, no entertainment budget, £100 per month for food and we almost starve. No money for clothes, prescriptions, vets etc.

Sorry to waffle but so scared about doing a DMP what are they like? Do people actually stop interest? Could i start one where i am and then amend when i finish work. Is it ok for just me to have one and not my husband as we want one of us to have a good credit. Saying that can you rent once you have a DMP if we both did it?

How are joint debts factored?

Again i know im waffling but if anyone can point me in the right direction as i am so scared to ring CCCS but i dont need the stress right now.

Thanks
Alamaya

dancingfairy

I'm not sure why CCCS has cut your budge so tightly? That doesn't sound quite right to me - have they taken into account your new circumstances or is there extra income they are figuring in with child related benefits? The only other thing is that perhaps they have included these within other cateogries.
I would not sign up to it until you've got to the bottom of it and clearly it has to be sustainable or it will soon fail.
Perhap post your SOA up and see what people on here suggest? if you go to makesense of cards website there is a SOA calculator which you can fill in and then copy everything it gives you and post it on here (you might have delete the bit that says' with permission of makesense of cards' as being a new person you will not be allowed to post links so if you don't remove that bit it won't show on here properly).
The trouble with one person doing a dmp is that if you stop paying a joint debt it will fall to your partner to pay I think - they don't get into 'well it's half and half' or however your bills are set up and who pays what so they will go after either/both of you for it.
df

pure_dead_dopey

Alamaya

have you started your DMP yet? You should NOT be paying so much to unsecured creditors that you are starving, that is not how it works at all. The whole idea of a DMP is to give you time to pay what you owe at a reasonable rate, you've still got to live and no DMP will work if the budget is so tight, so its cross productive in the end. CCCS are there to help, and they are very good but you need to go through your budget carefully, making sure you pay all your priority debts and are able to live (might have to give up the porsche for a while though!). being able to live means that you have enough to eat and clothe yourself, there is an allowance for haircuts, definitely prescriptions, and there should also be a small entertainment budget, and most definitely an emergency fund. If none of these are in your budget, you need to speak with CCCS again and discuss until it gets fixed. if you undertake a DMP in these circumstances it will fail and that doesn't help you or get the creditors their money back. Good luck and keep posting and let us know how you get on.

PDDxxx

Tixy

Hi

I agree with df that posting up a statement of affairs will help. I think you mean that at the moment you feel you can cut back to afford the £70 but that if you spoke to CCCS they would say you cannot afford anything? You must put food first and not pay so much to your creditors.

House soon are you expecting the house sale? is it imminent? will you be left with any equity from the property?
If it is happening really soon then you could consider just paying token payments for a couple of months and then setting up a DMP based on your new living arrangements.

As df says, if you do a DMP then for any joint debt he will be expected to pay off the debt. And until any joint debts are all cleared you will be classed as financially associated and his credit rating will be brought down by yours.
If/when all the joint debts were paid off and closed then you could file to be financially disassociated at the 3 credit agencies so that your rating won't affect his.

Hax

I can highly recommend CCCS - having had help from them in the past. It is a very scary situation to be in - but be honest about your expenses and list absolutely everything you spend money on. They will try to trim some money here and there - that's to be expected - but you need to ensure that you have enough to live on. If £100 isn't enough for food, tell them so and they'll adjust your budget to ensure you have enough money to live. You won't be living like kings - but you should be able to afford all the essentials.

CCCS will then negotiate the repayment plan with your creditors and try to get the interest payments frozen.

Above all else, do NOT be afraid to call the CCCS - they're there to help you and it will feel like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders when you start talking to them!

dancingfairy

If you don't get on with CCCS there are other charities - National Debtline can help and give advice, your local CAB etc or you can do a dmp on your own.
I'm wondering whether CCCS have cut your expenses down too much because otherwise you would have nothing to offer creditors?
Good Luck and I'm sure it will all 'come out in the wash' so to speak and you can get it sorted.
df

alamaya

Hi all

Thanks for the replies. I have not had chance to read properly as at work and have peering eyes but from the quick read i have managed i appear to have slightly misled you.
I am not currently on a DMP but thinking about starting one as debt rememdy told me it was best choice they also were the ones telling me that i was not paying enough for food and entertainment etc (we dont go out at all)

The SOA i am doing is one i made myself. Basically im starving myself as i felt so stupid i wanted debt gone asap.

I will read carefully tonight and reply properly to you.

Thanks again

alamaya

Hi All,

Sorry for taking so long to read and reply.
I have emailed CCCS to ask about options with regards to starting a DMP now or waiting till i have moved house.

The house is not on market yet but i will be getting that sorted by end of month. Want to sort a few things before valuation.

Worst case scenario i will either have to go bankrupt or voluntary repossesion although not sure fully yet what either entails.

My mum has given me £400 out of my dads redundancy money to buy baby things later on in the pregnany. Should i give this back to her as it may confuse the CCCS or they may take it for a credior?

Still very scared about this process. Just worry interest would carry on. Also the CCCS debt rememdy says to stop all DD and SO, I know this is because on the proper food budget etc i would not meet min pyts but seems crazy to cancel them.

arrrrrrrrg.

Tixy

Hi alamaya, thanks for posting again.

Good idea to speak to CCCS, they should be able to advise. I guess if the house is not yet on the market then it could be a little while until you have moved.

With regards to the baby money it might be better if you could keep this in cash to use for what you need, or could Mum look after it and just give it you as you need it? If its in a bank account that you owe money to for a credit card, or loan or whatever, or an overdraft, then its possible that your bank could take it to offset your debts. Personally I wouldn't mention it to CCCS, think of it not that your mum gave you £400, but that she has agreed to buy the actual items for you.

With regards to interest, no one can guarantee that creditors will freeze it but most people find that most of their creditors will agree to freeze interest.

If you are fairly sure that at some point you will have to make reduced payments then I would say there is no point making yourself hungry to try to keep up with payments and preserve your credit rating. In a way the longer you wait the worse a position you may put yourself in.

Hopefully CCCS will be able to give you some tailored advice about a way forward.

Oh and good luck with baby when they come!

lifeonthesword

hi, so sorry to hear about your situation. I am currently on a DMP with a company who phoned me and I joined. To cut a long story short, I am paying for their services and am starting to think I made a huge mistake. My debts are for 15k, my husband didn't know about them, and I have an 18month old baby so i know how stressful it is. Just a few pointers to help you re the DMP: be prepared for it to take ages (don't know if anyone else has had a different experience though).

Creditors tend to in general freeze int & charges, but not all, e.g M&S and Virgin are still charging me. You should definitely stop all min payments, and be aware, (I found out today) that upto 6 yrs after the end of the DMP, your credit rating will be very affected. Also, they will never stop sending you default notices etc. Things got so bad for me that I just stopped opening all letters as it bought me out into a sweat, but please be advised that obviously, this is the worse thing you can do. (I wasn't burying my head in the sand). You have to take each day as it comes, esp as you have a little one coming. Some days I don't know how I will make it to the next but reading posts on here makes me feel better.

Also you have to be brutally honest about your spending, as someone said before, If you need more allowance for food let thenm know. I am now considering the national debtline or the CCC as obviosuly they do things for free. I wasn't aware of this before I ahreed to the DMP. I was just in such a mess I needed some help asap. Sorry for such a long post this is my first, and I just want to be able to help.

Tixy

Thats a useful post lifeonthesword. For your own situation i would definitely speak to one of these - IMPORTANT - Where to seek professional impartial advice about your debts. - and move your DMP to them. Most fee charging providers require just 4 weeks written notice to cancel. And if you save all that money in fees and instead are paying that off your debts you will become debt free so much sooner.

Good luck and welcome to the forum.