Brogden struggles with dmp / personal loan / hbos / albion

Brogden

What a thing to be doing at this time of year. I have truly woken up to my debt. I have, however not started a DMP (diy or other.) One of the main reasons is that I cannot get my head around the position of a personal loan in a DMP.

The majority of my debt is credit cards. However, in a moment of total insanity in January this year, I applied for a personal loan with a company which is part of HBoS. The loan is now in arrears and is with HBoS’s first debt collector, Albion Collections. It may shortly be with their second debt collector, Blair Oliver & Scott.

As I understand it, a DMP involves conducting an Income and Expenditure exercise and the amount of available income is then divided between the various creditors pro-rata to the size of the debts. What happens if this calculation dictates that the amount to be payable on the HBoS personal loan is much less than the contractual payment? To make it worse there are arrears……

It seems that with a credit card there is great flexibility following an I & E exercise for the bank to greatly reduce the required payment, freeze or reduce interest etc. It seems that with a personal loan this is not the case.

I read with horror the posts from people who had personal loans with Northern Rock in their DMP’s. Apparently where the DMP payment to Northern Rock was less than the contractual payment, they insisted that the shortfall be made up or they would default, take to court etc. etc. If that is the attitude of a fairly major lender, what is the point of a DMP? Do other lenders behave in this way?

Basically the amount I am being asked for by Albion / HBoS is a lot of money (Its all my fault I know, I know, I know and I am not trying to avoid the debt) but if this full contractual payment plus arrears has to be made each month, there will be nothing left for any other debt and the DMP simply won’t work and I will have a big problem.

Surely I am getting something wrong?

Does anybody have experience where a creditor on a personal loan has accepted a (much) reduced payment and not sought to take the debtor to court?

Does anybody have experience with Albion / Blair Oliver & Scott on matters like this?

If this ends up with Blair Oliver & Scott, might it be easier to negotiate? A number of people have advised that BO & S are quite reasonable?

Thanks everybody,

Brogden.

dancingfairy

I am presuming that the loan is unsecured? As long as you have got a new basic bank account away from your creditors then surely it goes into the dmp along with everything else.
Yes they can ask for this that and the other but if you didn't have the money to meet the normal repayments then you're not going to be able to afford that PLUS arrears.
They can also threaten court (As can any of your creditors) and yes they can take you to court but if you genuinely don't have the money to pay them, then you don't have the money to pay them - a judge has no more power to conjure up money out of thin air for them than you do Your credit rating is likely to have taken a severe hit by now, you won't end up in prison, you won't have your home taken off you (o.k well technically there is a tiny, tiny, tiny possibility that your creditor could make you bankrupt but in all the years on here I have never heard of a creditor making someone bankrupt (Apart from HMRC) and the judge would probably make an order for what your budget shows you can afford (as per your dmp budget). It will cost a company quite a bit to make you bankrupt and they are not guaranteed to get any more money out of you so it is not something to be overly worried about.
I would however give one of the debt charities such as National Debtline or CCCS a call or pop into your local CAB for more help and advice.
Best of Luck
df

Brogden

Thanks dancingfairy.

Yes - the loan is unsecured. Maybe its in my mind but it still seems to me that credit cards are much easier to deal with in DMP's than personal loans which is why I am cursing myself even more for getting lumbered with this one!

Brogden

Oh by the way..........I would be really keen to hear of anybody else's experience with:-

1. Albion Collections
2. Blair Oliver & Scott

Thanks All! Hope you enjoyed crimbo and a happy new year if I don't speak to you before!!!!

Standingtall

Hi Brogden. My personal loan from Santander is included in my DMP and the payments are only around a fifth of what they ought to have been. Interest and charges have kindly been frozen. (I wish they would do the same on my overdraft, also Santander, also in DMP - grrrhhh - have sent letter to the regarding this so will wait with baited breath).

It is dependent on the individual credior however, and nothing is guaranteed. At the end of the day though, many people going into a DMP really do not have any option, so ...

Brogden

Thanks Standingtall. Very useful to know. Best of luck with your overdraft!

sickasachip13

Hi there Brogden

I am on a DMP and two of my debts have ended up with BOS and, to be honest, they've been absolutely fine to deal with. One of these is a Halifax personal load and the payment for this is around one-fifth of the contractual payment. It's all been included in the DMP and really haven't been problematic.

I'd suggest speaking to CCCS or doing their online debt tool as this could help you explore your options.

SAAC

Brogden

Thanks for your help.

Standingtall and sickasachip mention personal loans in a DMP and coincidentally for both, only about a fifth of the contractual payment being made under the DMP calculation. Maybe I have been getting a little too hung up about the inflexible attitude of lenders where a personal loan is concerned.

Can you guys (or anybody else) in a similar position with personal loans and a dmp advise if the reduced payment was negotiated (1)with the bank or (2) with a DCA after the loan had been passed over? I wonder if new negotiation is more difficult with a DCA.

Help from all welcome. Sickasachip, you mention Blair Oliver & Scott being pretty OK to deal with. Was the reduced payment agreed by CCCS with Halifax / Albion or Blair Oliver & Scott?

Simply due to a sudden change of circumstance, I cannot afford the monthly contractual loan payment plus arrears amount being asked for by Albion Collections on the loan and if I try to entertain it there will simply be nothing left for my other creditors (or for the family!) If they insist on this then all notions of a neat and tidy DMP are finished.

Also, my worry is that to pay a fraction of of the contractual payment on this loan will make them think its worth taking me to court etc etc.

I have for six months now been considering a DMP. Would the DFW's generally think that to be doing a CCCS DMP as opposed to DIY DMP (a) increases the likelihood of getting reduced payments/interest freezes agreed (b) gives a better chance of avoiding court because repayment proposals may be taken more seriously?

Thanks all.

Brogden.

JustinCredibleGillespie

Your creditors probably won't want to deal with you on a DIY DMP, they will likely ask you to contact one of the debt charities or CAB.

CCCS or Payplan (which come highly recommended by posters on this site) are able to deal with your creditors for you & they can negotiate with them, and you'll also have a better chance of having the interest frozen if you use one of the above.

Would you not just give them a call and let them help you, they will talk you through your options....

JCG

xx

Standingtall

Brogden wrote: »

Thanks for your help.

Standingtall and sickasachip mention personal loans in a DMP and coincidentally for both, only about a fifth of the contractual payment being made under the DMP calculation. Maybe I have been getting a little too hung up about the inflexible attitude of lenders where a personal loan is concerned.

Can you guys (or anybody else) in a similar position with personal loans and a dmp advise if the reduced payment was negotiated (1)with the bank or (2) with a DCA after the loan had been passed over? I wonder if new negotiation is more difficult with a DCA.

Help from all welcome. Sickasachip, you mention Blair Oliver & Scott being pretty OK to deal with. Was the reduced payment agreed by CCCS with Halifax / Albion or Blair Oliver & Scott?

Simply due to a sudden change of circumstance, I cannot afford the monthly contractual loan payment plus arrears amount being asked for by Albion Collections on the loan and if I try to entertain it there will simply be nothing left for my other creditors (or for the family!) If they insist on this then all notions of a neat and tidy DMP are finished.

Also, my worry is that to pay a fraction of of the contractual payment on this loan will make them think its worth taking me to court etc etc.

I have for six months now been considering a DMP. Would the DFW's generally think that to be doing a CCCS DMP as opposed to DIY DMP (a) increases the likelihood of getting reduced payments/interest freezes agreed (b) gives a better chance of avoiding court because repayment proposals may be taken more seriously?

Thanks all.

Brogden.

My Santander loan is still with Santander but my Egg loan was sold (before my DMP) to Moorcroft Britannica (it really is Britannica not Britannia). Apparently Moorcroft are a DCA but when sold my loan was uptodate. Both of these companies have been fine although they were dealing with Payplan not directly with me. Having said that I do need to check whether Moorcroft have stopped interest on the loan - I think they have but ..

The only issues I had was both of the above did apply a couple of late / letter charges right at the beginning but once they received notification from Payplan they were fine.

Why not try ringing Payplan and CCCS, do some further reading and then make a decision. You have nothing to lose by picking up the phone?

wannabee_in_credit

I have a dmp with CCCS and a Sainsbury's loan that has been passed to BOS to deal with. I have never had a problem with them at all - but I'm personally much happier that the vast majority of my communications have been done via cccs. I've only spoken to them a couple of times on the phone but found them to be quite reasonable. I'm paying about 1/3 of my contractual payments, but interest hasn't been frozen unfortunately so it'll take me longer to deal with.