Help!!!!

dee42_2

Hi

This is my first post here so apologies if I am in the wrong place. I wondered if anyone can offer any help and advice

this is our situation:
my husband is a self employed builder with his own business in August 2010 he suffered an accident in which he broke his back in 2 places and smashed his ankle socket and has been unable to work since.
He has a credit card with Lloyds TSB (Platinum) and up to now we have managed to meet the repayments however today I rang them to see if we can arrange a payment plan and a memortorium on the interest, basically to freeze the interest, which is currently £200 per month. They say they are unable to help as we are not in arrears and passed me on to the Consumer Credit Counselling Service. My point is I only need to reduce that payment not any others and after 2hrs and 30 minutes on the phone we are no better off.

His bill is due to be generated tomorrow should we just make a lower payment than the minimum payment and write explaining what I asked for on the phone, or not pay at all and get into arrears which is what I am trying to avoid.

I can't understand how they are not prepared to offer help when we are trying to avoid arrears can this be correct. we have no income apart from my full time job approx £1200 per month after deductions.

Any advice you can offer would be appreciated as I am rapidly losing yhe will to live!!!!!!!

Thank you for reading x

[Deleted User]

true they wont look to help unless you are in arrears,then if you get into arrears they might sell the debt on to a debt collection agency,a catch 22 situation,is there anyway you can meet all the payments?no ppi taken out on any loans?no self employed insurance?

Tixy

dee42 wrote: »

. My point is I only need to reduce that payment not any others and after 2hrs and 30 minutes on the phone we are no better off.

By 'others' do you mean other debts? If so then that is likely to be an issue.
Barclays aren't likely to be happy for you to reduce payment to them and them not charge interest if your other creditors are still getting paid the full amount and still earning interest.

That will be why they have suggested CCCS - because they know that when they are involved with a debtor tha all creditors are treated equally.

If you cannot meet all your minimum payments on debts after basic living costs and not reuse credit then contacting one of the debt advice charities may be the way to go. Especially as it sounds like this is likely to be a long term issue.

YorkshireBoy

dee42 wrote: »

...freeze the interest, which is currently £200 per month.

At 15.9% APR, that level of interest represents a £16K+ balance. Is that correct?

What's the sum total of all your (joint) debts?

dee42_2

The balance is currently 11300. I am only trying to sort out my husbands debt as i am currently meeting mine. But it looks as if it has to be considered jointly unless he is in arrears is that correct???
Thanks for your replies

Tixy

Not necessarily no - its certainly possible that just one of you could enter a DMP or make reduced payments etc.

Creditors won't generally agree to reduced payments or freeze interest without the debtors credit file being affected (either by entering a default or an arrangement to pay).

If you are financially associated (joint mortgage, bank accounts, loans etc) then you would also be affected by any negatives on his file.

You don't have to use one of the debt charities - he could write to his creditors himself setting out his circumstances and how much he can afford to pay. They'll often ask for a monthly income & expenditure budget to see what he is offering to pay is reasonable.
You don't have to provide an I&E, but then they don't have to freeze interest.

dee42_2

That's why we rung lloyds today to try and make an arrangement with them but their reply is that you are not in arrears so we cant help!!!

I was going to write a letter to them with a copy of this months bill and explain the reasons why we cannot make full payment, however my worry is if the minimum payment is say 230.00 and we pay 100.00 then they will add late payment charges, extra interest and god knows what else.

I appreciate all your replies and can't understand why Lloyds are making this so difficult as I have managed to reduce payments on our other monthly expenditure, mortgage, utilities etc

YorkshireBoy

dee42 wrote: »

...can't understand why Lloyds are making this so difficult as I have managed to reduce payments on our other monthly expenditure, mortgage, utilities etc

So you already have (between you) an arrangement to pay (AP) marker on your credit reports placed by the mortgage provider after they reduced your payments?

Or had you previously overpaid and are now taking a payment holiday?

When's hubby looking like getting back to work?

dee42_2

no we just change our mortgage to an interest only for 12 months to ease the financial burden.

Husband has a building business with his father but is signed off for another 6 months at present