Help with husbands big debt - long story

jimmerjammer

This goes back a long long way - basically my husband is rubbish with money, and always has been. He had two Lloyds bank accounts - one business and one personal although he is freelance and so treated them all as personal really. He had a £10,000 (yes £10K) overdraft facility on the business account and £500 on the personal. Year by year he was at the maximum with nothing to pay it with and massive charges each month. I should also say at this point that being in denial he kept nothing either and so I have very few statements. Anyway, every year they would offer him a £10k loan to pay off the overdraft and give him a new £10K overdraft to fill. To cut a long story short about three years ago he lost 80% of his regular work and they basically said enough was enough. So he had £10k overdraft, £10k loan that he had been paying for about a year and about 6/7 months remaining on his last £10K loan. Oh and did I mention the Lloyds credit card that he owes £14k on.
Both the loans and the credit card INSISTED he had payment protection on them, but of course as we all know, it counts for zilch when you are self employed. For example, he would pay the minimum on his card of about £250 and after interest and charges the amount he was paying off the debt was about £20.
The same goes for the loans. We went to the CAB who advised us to open a new account with a different bank which we did. He now pays Lloyds £250 a month at a high interest and so after about 9 months in he got a statement to say he had paid off about £300 of his debt and that at this rate it would take 27 years to complete! He's 50! Ha ha.
We have just received another letter giving us a deadline to respond to them about how we are planning to proceed and I wondered if there was any advice about what we should write.
Thanks for reading, and really hope someone out there can give me a little bit of advice as to the best way to move forward.

angchris

i`d be tempted to write to lloyds and complain that the loan and credit card was knowingly miss sold by them as he is/was self employed and the payment protection aspect was no good for him. they might cancel all the ppi on the loans/cc`s if you are lucky. i`d demand back payment too also look into getting those bank charges refunded im sure someone more knowledgable than me will come along soon with a link or advise also making min payments is like treading water this is exactly what the banks want as those in debt making min payments arent actually paying much off the debt and they keep the pennies rolling in, try and throw every spare penny at these debts to get rid of them. would it be possible for you to do a soa? get everything up together and we can properly advise your hubby once we have facts and figures infront of us. you guys need to have a proper structured plan of attack and by working as a team you will be able to formulate one, as hubby is rubbish with money make sure any future dealings with money are properly investigated first by both of you and always ask on this site first before making a decision ...best of luck...angchris

angchris

bumped for morning crew

CLAPTON

i think you need to post a full SOA so we can see the full financial picture

jimmerjammer

angchris - thanks for bumping me - I have had a sleepless night and feel very jaded today.

I have to tell you that as this becomes all of my responsibility (as he just holds his head and goes out!) I am finding it all a bit daunting. If there was someone I could go to and pay for advice right now I think I would - but - I have some questions.

I can do an SOA - it will take me a bit of time, but basically the truth is we are both self employed and so our outgoings are about £2000 per month but right now - I have no work until late March and my husband has about four days between now and March. So you see we can never really put down what our earning are. I have just lost two regular contracts and so from here on in have no guaranteed income at all. I know I have work in May but that's not much good.

As he had the overdraft facility the charges were for the overdraft not charges for going over that amount (I think! I must go and check that one) - then of course the Payment Protection that they insisted he take out for each loan and on the Credit Card - that really gets me.

The house is in my name (I never actually changed my name when we got married if that makes any difference) and basically everything else is in my name because he had an ex sending court orders left right and centre for increased maintenance (he was paying £400 per month and she wanted £800!) to digress on that one - he did go to court and they found in his favour and she ended up getting nothing as the child was nearly 18 - so it certainly didn't work for her.

I don't have savings but what I do have is enough to pay the mortgage for three months which comes out of a separate account that I cannot touch as I refuse to have a card or pin number for it for that very reason.

All debts owed are to Lloyds - for bank account, two loans and credit card.
I have an Egg loan with about £7,300 remaining. That's it. Tax paid up.

I am wondering whether to just tell them to take him to court - they can't get what we don't have can they? Or can they make me sell the house?
Wish I hadn't written that - I feel even more depressed now!!! House has just had a subsidence claim on it and so obviously wouldn't get anything like what I would have got due to that.

Sorry this is so long. But thanks for the input. Really really appreciate it.
The bank are asking for a response to latest letter by Thursday - I am wondering whether to stall and write that we are taking advice and that they will receive a full response next week? Any thoughts on that idea?

3LITTLEPIGS_2

without a doubt i would write and complain about being missold ppi, you must keep on at them and do not give up-you will get at least some back. there is a team there that deal with these complaints.
Good luck

angchris

a soa is definately a good way forward for you, get it all down on paper and then post it here and we`ll see if we can help in any way. is there any possibility of 1 of you getting a "normal" job in the meantime to help with the monthly bills so at least you know you have a stable income coming in? don`t mean to be nosy but what was the letter from the bank about? we might be able to devise a suitable response letter for you

jimmerjammer

You have really made me laugh - first get a normal job!!!! - I wish - I would love a normal job - unfortunatley I have done this one for so long I am now not qualified for anything - couldn't even be a secretary if I wanted!!
The second that made me laugh out loud was - don't want to be nosy - how could you possibly be nosy - that's the whole point of being here - I want you to know ALL my business because I think the more you tell people everything the easier it becomes to deal with - no secrets - no panic.
Although I am panicking.

The letter is from Lloyds TSB, Customer Dept Management, Bristol.
It says that the £250 he is paying monthly at present does not even cover the interest accruing on his debt and they want to increase it to £385 which they say would pay the balance off in 10 years.

They also say they are willing to consider alternative proposals.

Not sure where to start when replying to them. They didn't reply to the CAB at all when we first tried to sort this out in 2004 - each person that was dealing with him either got ill or left and he never had anyone specific to talk to.

They also insisted on the Payment protection and advised on the business account although he is a single trader and not limited company.

SOA - I am working on it - is there a template here that I should fill in then. I'll go have a search around in the stickies and see.

Thank you

angchris

would it be worth writing and asking them to freeze the interest? its worth a go they can only say no

chevalier

Okay as regards the SOA have a look at southernscousers sticky at the top of the forum as this has a good lay out. You need to put down all of your income and expenditure. This included yearly things like car tax, insurance, etc ie divide them by 12 for a monthly figure.

Next I would write a letter to Lloyds as discussed earlier, stating that your OH was missold the PPI on the loans etc, and that you want to stop this now, and claim back previously payments. Send this recorded delivery so that they can't say they didn't get it.

Finally as you have an alternative bank set up, I would ask for the 6 years of statements in preparation for reclaiming bank charges. You have to enclose a £10 payment for this. If you look at the reclaiming charges thread on this site, you will be able to see what things you can claim back. Also have a look at the https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk site, as this has template letters etc.

best of luck
chev

Baggiebird1nil

Definitley go for the bank charges. I have successfully claimed back £480 from Barclays and a staggering £1171 from Natwest. I never went overdrawn very oftetn but they soon mount up.
Another question ar your OH's loans secured on the property? If not he could tak to CCs or Payplan about his options.