Thanks to the wife............

Willsnarf1983

slimwallet wrote:

Hi BB
Congrats on your progress. My story is I incurred 145k debt without wife's knowledge over a 2 year period. Money used for trading on stock market. Could not inform her as she was off work with depression. Was making more money than when I was working (made redundant) in first 6 months, then market went pear shaped due to crashes and world terroism. Wife found out and now I am on recovery paln with Payplan as advised to me by the CAB -Cit Advice Burea.

Reduced outgoings SkyTV, holidays, papers etc, stopped the luxuries and cycle to work and take sandwiches. No holiday since Sept 2005!! (use to have 4 abroad each year)

I had 12 debtors and Payplan negotiated a payback plan with 0% interest. All agreed to 0% except Tesco who agreed after 12 months. (Been on plan for 18 months). Now reduced debt from £145k to £123k through payback plan and a pre plan settlement (agreed settlement of 5k for 16k debt).

Considered re-mortgage (was offered £185k mortgage) but not a good idea to convert debt to a secured loan.

Last 2½ years I have been in a full time job and wife refuses to help either by getting a job (shes been unemployed for 3 years) or offering some of her savings to pay off my debt. House in my name and could pay off debt if sold.

Next step unfortunately is divorce as wife cannot cope with this trauma and she is completely unsupportive.

Considering selling hoouse and a final settlement offer for all 12 debtors but just need an idea of what I should offer. Guess 30to 70%??? My debtors are mainly the well known credit cards plus Halifax and northern rock loans.

Suggest you and your wife speak to payplan.

Good luck

i suggest u post this as a new thread

Will

mh1923

Mrs. BB, if you are reading this, please speak up. We won't bite! Promise!

Mr. BB, I just want to go with everyone else who has said don't remortgage yet. Wait until you are back home and have had time to work together on the budget and see what is possible. Give it a few months. The problem has been around for a while, it doesn't need to be solved today. It feels like a kneejerk reaction.

debt23

Hi all,

BB --- Hi.

Sorry, going to be a bit radical here (please don’t pan me folks, just thinking out loud)


First off, yes, the plan is to remortgage - but no way for 60 grand odd. What you need to do (as many have suggested) is get a settlement figure and pay this via the reportage.

Ok, what’s the best way to get a really good settlement figure?

Well, it’s not pretty, but as the debt is in your wife’s name, you basically let her destroy her credit rating.

She stops paying all her debts. Nothing. Takes the annoying phone calls that follow, pleads poverty and that she is trying to sort her finances out.

She prepares a SOE and sends it off along with a token monthly payment.

She can, if she wishes, mention that you have totally washed your hands of this matter and she cannot get any help from you - so she has to do it all on her wages etc etc

The creditors issue defaults, maybe CCJ's - just roll with it. Yes, she may get such a poor record credit wise that she can never get credit ever again - but hey, I might suggest that’s a bonus - you seem to have everything else sorted so why worry about it.

Now, having pushed things to the edge, you come riding in as her savour and offer to pay all the debts off if the figure is right - you state you've 30,000 to spend, take it or leave it.

It might take a bit of argy bargy but you'll probably find that her creditors are more than happy to take a 50% settlement.

Remortgage for 30K, problem solved. She can’t get credit anymore, so no trouble in the future either.



Now - the problem with this type of approach is knowing how far you can push the debt people - but the more you make them chase their money, the easier it will be to get a good settlement figure.

I went for 2 years without paying a single one of my creditors - and despite the threats - no bankruptcy yet!

BIG BIG NOTE : Please, I realise folks that Im telling BB to 'avoid' paying the whole debt back, and I know many on this forum believe that if you borrowed it you should pay it all back - Im just trying to give another idea that’s all

(Good start for another thread though.......)

All the best

Debt23