Advice on final settlement figures please

pineapplesherbet

Hi, I'm posting this message for advice for my lovely sister in law who got ripped off by her husband when they divorced and basically got saddled with all his debt. She has been paying it off ever since. She is left now with debts of approx £8000 to Lloyds TSB (credit card) and around £8500 to MBNA. She is thinking of getting a lump sum brought forward from her pension to pay them as she is sick of them hanging over her life.

What I wondered was if anybody has an idea of amounts she is likely to get the companies down to when offering a cash settlement? She has been paying them off for around 8 years and pays £100 per month (in total) The interest on them has been frozen.

Also, I can't remember the name of the site forum I used to sort out my debts, they have a lot of info and advice on individual companies and debt companies and how to handle them. Is it the consumer credit counseling service or something like that? Thanks very much in advance

pineapplesherbet

Anybody???? Have I posted this in the right place? Thanks

gabriella90

Hi Pineapplesherbet.

u think your sister should get some advice from the CAB are the debts in her name?

Also is she struggling to meet the payments on these debts, have there been missed payments, defaults etc? If so Full and final offers may be an option to reduce the amounts. If she has been paying them off for a considerable time and they have been passed to DCA's she is in a good position to get them cleared

The CCCS website has lots of informtion and also the national debtline has templates to write to creditors.

Hope this is of some help
Gabs

pineapplesherbet

Hi Gabs, thanks for your reply. She hasn't defaulted on any of the payments as far as I know, do you suggest she miss a few so that the companies will be more likely to settle for a lesser amount then? I don't think they're with DCAs but will check today. Thanks again

fermi

The account originally being defaulted because you couldn't make the required payments, and then keeping to or not keeping to a payment arrangement after that are 2 different things.

They may not have broken the current payment arrangement, but that doesn't mean the accounts weren't defaulted when they first had trouble paying back.

Especially at those repayment levels, which surely can't even be enough to cover the original contractual minimum on the cards?

Info on making settlements in this link.

---> How to make offers in full and final settlement

pineapplesherbet

Thank you Fermi, that's helpful. Will take a look at the link now