Advice Re 1st Credit

Mary_Ellen

Hi everybody- I wonder if anybody has had any experience of these hard sell people??

We had an unsecured personal loan with Abbey, which as gone into arrears. We were paying £352 a month, and asked (a few months ago)if we could renegotiate the payments. Due to our financial circumstances, Abbey couldnt do anything with their products, but immediately transferrred me to 'First Credit', who offered a secured loan with First Plus. It was about this time I saw Martin's plea to Carol Vorderman to stop advertising for these people, and I could see why!! They offered to 'restructure' our debts into a secured loan, but were VERY hard sell in their approach. We declined their generous offer.

In the interim, we're trying to remortgage, having a total of £40k debts, the Abbey having £12000 of this. I don't want to go into income/outgoings etc-have already used Martin's excellent budget planner for this,and feel that we're making headway. The problem is that Abbey have now instructed First Plus to pursue us for the debt, and a consultant has phoned this evening threatening us with court action & the possible loss of our home as we've reached this serious state of affairs. however (the lad said brightly) if we can raise £9000 they can write the balance off for us. In all honesty, he might as well have asked for £90k,but says we can make a lower offer. Have told him I'm going to think about it, as i'd prefer to make a monthly payment and increase it as things improve (or a few relatives leave me their mansions!!!)

Can any of you good people offer some constructive advice about how I should approach these shysters??

Thanks in anticipation!!!!

THE_LONE_RANGER_4

Confused Are You Mortgage Payments Up To Date Are All Your Debts Unsecured? If They Are Why Do First Plus Assume You Will Lose Your Home ?

fatbelly

Mary_Ellen wrote:

We had an unsecured personal loan with Abbey, which as gone into arrears. We were paying £352 a month, and asked (a few months ago)if we could renegotiate the payments.

If it's unsecured debt, you can't lose your home. Don't you dare convert it to secured!
If you've got 40k of unsecured debt and can't afford the contractural payments, you need to renegotiate with the help of Payplan or CCCS. Don't remortgage.

Mary_Ellen

Thanks for you replies. Mortgage has only slipped by 1 month, but am negotiating with Halifax to repay arrears. Their threat was that I would have to appear before a judge & could have the debt attached to my home and thereby lose it if I default. I said if it gets to that stage, I'll declare myself bankrupt & you'll get diddly squat.

Have no intention of debt consolidating, and appreciate the advice re Payplan etc. I was just amazed a few months ago when a supposedly reputable 'bank' actually transferred me to First Plus & they just leapt on the opportunity to stitch us up with a secured loan.

Thanks again!!

madduck

Bit confused by a couple of the points in your posts. First of all, you seem to be saying that you do not have secured lending with First Plus. You do have unsecured lending with Abbey - which is in arrears however. Why is it then that First Plus are pursuing you for these arrears? Surely it would be Abbey??

You do seem to be having some issues at the moment with your finances, why are you so against Debt Management? Have you considered talking to CCCS or Payplan to see if they can offer any advice? Many of us have used this route and found it to be a lifesaver!

On the question of the legal action that seems to be being threatened, from what you have said this sounds like they are talking about getting some form of attachment order on your home. From the experiences of other posters on the site it seems that this is an increasingly popular tactic amongst unsecured lenders. It isn't the same as reposession - it basically means (or I think so anyway) that they get a legal order whereby the lender can reclaim monies owed on the future sale of the home. If at some point in the future you were to sell your home, the lender would be able to recover any monies still outstanding from any equity in the property - they would have first dibs before you.

Would strongly recommend having a chat with CCCS or Payplan before considering remortgaging. If you are in arrears with your mortgage at the moment, surely this is a big risk. Also, surely your current debt problems would affect the rate of interest you are likely to be paying?