What a mess

cdlne

Where do I begin....

Over the years I have built up an unsustainable level of Unsecured debt approx £50,000. I was self employed for a lot of these years and most if not all of the debt build up was trying to keep my business afloat. I am now employed earning nowhere near what I was so now in a position where MBNA are about to register a default against my name.

The problem is now I work for a bank and I am lead to believe that when they find out I could in fact lose my job I also have a credit card with a 3k balance on with them which means I would have to include that in the DMP. I have a wife and 2 children and our lives have been effected by all the worry and stress and my relationship with my wife has suffered dramatically due to the stress I feel we are under.

I have managed to pay my mortgage everymonth however we have no equity in it and its currently on an interest only basis. This is also a big worry.

I thought about a DMP but when I spoke with MBNA they said they would not accept anything less then £190.00 per month even if I applied for one through an independent. The thing is the debt is on 1 card with 11k on it and my wife has another with 10k on it then with another 10k on a barclaycard and a Santandar loan at £300.00 per month there is not a chance we could afford to pay what a DMP would recommend.

I have thought about speaking with my boss about it but i am so ashamed as to the level of debt I have built up and dont feel it is an option.

I feel so depressed about the whole thing and cannot see a way out....any advice would be appreciated as I am getting a load of calls threatning defaults etc.....great site with some great members by the way. Thank you for taking the time out to read my problems :beer:

pure_dead_dopey

I think you will have to do something, if you are still increasing the debt every month and the mortgage is on interest only, it is all going to come to a head at some point, unless you win the lottery, which is unlikely. Quite a lot of banks have no objection to a DMP so it might not be a bad idea to ask at your HR department, they've got to keep your confidence. MBNA will say anything to get money out of you and this is rubbish, they are usually quite good at accepting DMPs, they know its possibly the only way they will get their money! You must have been speaking to some telephone jockey trying to keep his collections up. CCCS do a debt remedy for free online and it is anonymous, it might not be a bad idea to do that and get a feel for what a DMP would result in. meanwhile its also a benefit to do an SOA and post it up here, sometimes new brains can see savings that you won't because you are too close. Please try to calm down and look at the debt as just a problem, there will be an answer, and you will find it but you have to think calmly and read everything, then make an informed decision, one thing is for sure and you can't keep giving the banks what you haven't got. Good luck

Eonel

Paying an interest only mortgage on a house where you have no equity is the same as renting really. If you think of it as renting then hopefully that should be a little less stressful as it is how many many people live.

I did read on these boards that a DMP can exclude a credit card which is directly linked to your employment at a bank. It is in no-creditors interest for you to lose your job at this point. But i can not confirm this is true & you would need to make an appointment with one of the debt management charities to discuss.

Tixy

I would echo speaking to CCCS.
First do a detailed budget/statement of affairs to see how much you can afford to put towards your debts each month in total after living costs.

Then if you speak to CCCS and explain the employment/banking issue as said above they are sometimes able to wrk something out (to allow you to continue to pay any debts with that bank at the full rate and then put the other debts in a DMP).

You say you would not be able to afford DMP payments, well these are set based on what you can afford, based on your income & expenditure.

Creditors may well say they won't accept a DMP or won't accept payments under such a level but once your DMP is up and running and they see you are using a charity and paying them all you can afford the reality is that they often will accept the DMP payments.

This is the statement of affairs calculator we use -
and if you post the results on here maybe people can spot enough savings and areas you could get things cheaper that it might result in a different solution altogether.
E.g. depending on whose name the debts are in, maybe just your wife could go into a DMP and you could carry on with your debt repayments.

topcat9

Hi cdlne,

You've had good advice from others about DMPs. I'd just add that as far as I know, you would only have a potential problem if you worked in a position where you were regulated by the FSA e.g. financial advisor. And presumably if you had this kind of job you would be aware of this already!

I also wanted to say that I wish you all the best and that you will get great help and support from the people on this forum.

bottleofred

Hi cdlne

The advice the others have given you is excellent and you should take it on board. MBNA and any other creditors will threaten you with everything just up to, but short of death in order to frighten you into paying. I know you're frightened of the default due to work, but you could phone the HR department and explain you are thinking of applying for a job and have a default/dmp, so how would this affect your application. You wouldn't even have to tell them your name etc.

Good luck

Red