paying off outstanding debts

twinklest4r

Hi can anyone help!

I have recently sent letters to my current credit cards and loan accounts, stating that i am in the position to settle my account.

But am only able to pay 30% of the outstanding debt. I had a reply from one who said they would not accept that payment! I have not had a reply from two of my accounts.

I am unsure what to do next, should I make contact by phone or write another letter?

andymc29

We'll need a bit more info to give a good response.
Have you poasted an SOA (statement of affairs) to show your income and outgoings?
This will give us a much better idea of your situation.

Tixy

Hi twinkles

Are you currently behind with repayments to your creditors? in an arrangement to pay reduced repayments?
If you are not then behind/never have been behind then creditors don't generally make settlement offers at all (some might give a small discount of say 5% in certain circumstances).

If you are behind with your repayments have you been issued with a default notice by your creditors? are you making regular payments towards your debts? are you debts with the original creditors, with in-house debt collectors or have they been sold to third party debt collectors.

The only way you would be likely to get anything like 30% settlements were if you had a default already and your debts had already been passed to debt collectors.

twinklest4r

Thanks for the reply.

Just to give you some more info.

I have outstanding debts such as two credit cards and a loan, totally 22,000. Credit card and loan with LTSB.

I am currently upto date with all my payments. However I will be made redundant shortly and I have around 10,000 to pay off some of my debts.

I dont really want to get into bad debts as this will effect my credit rating!

triple_choc_chip

If it were possible to run up debt and then just pay 30% of it because circumstances changed, many thousands of debtors would do exactly that and 70% wouldn't get paid back! (I know I would!!!)

Agencies can offer help if you are in a dire situation, but I can't think there are any that would do so when you are really just anticipating that you may get to said dire situation; because at this point in time you're not actually in need of their services (am I making sense? - somehow I doubt it!)

If you have £10k available, technically you are able to continue with regular payments until you have secured new employment?

Tixy

You won't get anything like those settlements without impacting on your credit file. Generally settlements are only offered to people who have defaulted on their agreements and who have defaults registered on their credit files.

Even if defaults were not registered most creditors would only agree to mark your credit accounts as partially satisfied which would show any other potential lenders that you didn't pay off your debts in full and again will affect your credit rating.

Basically unless you can continue to make your full payments and find new work quickly - and before the £10k runs out then you have to accept your credit file will be affected.

That said rather than try to make F&F offers once you no longer have your income you might want to contact one of the debt charities and possibly consider a DMP or some similar solution.

Good luck job hunting.