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bpm91

Hello All

Finally some good news to start 2015 with !

Been on a dmp with StepChange for a year now and my planned debt free date was august 2016.

But continued good work at my job has paid off and they have given me a payrise ! Which i've just spoke to StepChange and will now be making larger payments to my dmp so i will be debt free by december 2015 !

So happy and thanks so much to everyone from StepChange !

dwill1503

we currently have a repayment plan with debt line of £249pm to clear a debt of £13k. We are keen to finish this as we are conscious it is not doing that much good. We own a house worth £180k with a mortgage of only £97k. our monthly mortgage payments are only £480pm. (We don't live in house, we have consent to let) Our salaries are £35k and £12k and have 3 dependents. Do you think we should just sell the house, pay debt and then sit on cash for a few years before starting again? Thank you

StepChange_James

bpm91 wrote: »

Hello All

Finally some good news to start 2015 with !

Been on a dmp with StepChange for a year now and my planned debt free date was august 2016.

But continued good work at my job has paid off and they have given me a payrise ! Which i've just spoke to StepChange and will now be making larger payments to my dmp so i will be debt free by december 2015 !

So happy and thanks so much to everyone from StepChange !

That's great news. Thanks for sharing it with us. It goes to show that hard work can pay off. Good luck with the rest of your DMP, I'm sure December will be here in no time!

danidav

Hi

I am currently with Payplan and a debt management plan, one of my bank accounts froze all interest and account fees for 12 months but have decided from July 2014 to charge £360 pounds in account fees and unplanned overdraft fees. I have now spoken to my bank and pay plan and hopefully should have sorted this situation out but i am wondering if I sent a request for fees and charges back am I likely to receive these back?

Many Thanks
Danielle

Funkyanimal

Hi
We have sold our house to clear debt and get a larger rented property. I have several old defaults (over 5 years old) which I want to clear using a full and final payment offer but not sure of what level to use as my first offer. The debt I have been managing myself without any DMP.

Former_StepChange_Rachel

danidav wrote: »

Hi

I am currently with Payplan and a debt management plan, one of my bank accounts froze all interest and account fees for 12 months but have decided from July 2014 to charge £360 pounds in account fees and unplanned overdraft fees. I have now spoken to my bank and pay plan and hopefully should have sorted this situation out but i am wondering if I sent a request for fees and charges back am I likely to receive these back?

Many Thanks
Danielle

Hi there Danielle, thanks for getting in touch.

While we can't guarantee that applying for a refund of charges from your bank will be successful, it's always worth a try, especially if you're in financial difficulty or on a debt solution such as a DMP.

Under standard banking regulations and the Lending Code (an agreement that all major banks have to comply with) banks must treat you fairly and be considerate if you are in financial difficulty.

Visit this page on the MSE website to find out more about how reclaiming charges from your bank works: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges

Please be aware that reclaiming your charges is free of charge. There are a lot of 'claims management companies' out there that will apply for you for a fee, but the process is so simple that it really does make sense to just apply yourself.

Hope this helps

Best regards

Rachel

Debt-queen

Hi I'm looking to send letters to my creditors to freeze interest to Barclays and Mbna has anyone got the address of where I post them to. Sorry if I'm on the wrong forum but as you can see I'm a newbie

dwill1503

we currently have a repayment plan with debt line of £249pm to clear a debt of £13k. We are keen to finish this as we are conscious it is not doing that much good. We own a house worth £180k with a mortgage of only £97k. our monthly mortgage payments are only £480pm. (We don't live in house, we have consent to let) Our salaries are £35k and £12k and have 3 dependents. Do you think we should just sell the house, pay debt and then sit on cash for a few years before starting again? Thank you

StepChange_James

Debt-queen wrote: »

Hi I'm looking to send letters to my creditors to freeze interest to Barclays and Mbna has anyone got the address of where I post them to. Sorry if I'm on the wrong forum but as you can see I'm a newbie

Hello,

With Barclays and MBNA being big companies it's likely they'll have a few different addresses, depending on the type of account and the stage of debt collection you're currently at.

I suspect you might have already tried this, but if you've got recent correspondence then that should have the right address on it somewhere. Alternatively you could try searching Google but there's a risk you could get the wrong department.

Kind regards

James

StepChange_James

dwill1503 wrote: »

we currently have a repayment plan with debt line of £249pm to clear a debt of £13k. We are keen to finish this as we are conscious it is not doing that much good. We own a house worth £180k with a mortgage of only £97k. our monthly mortgage payments are only £480pm. (We don't live in house, we have consent to let) Our salaries are £35k and £12k and have 3 dependents. Do you think we should just sell the house, pay debt and then sit on cash for a few years before starting again? Thank you

Hi Dwill,

Thanks for getting in touch. Without knowing all the details about your finances (and your personal feelings about homeownership and the property you live in) it's hard to give a specific answer.

Selling a property to clear debts can sometimes be a good strategy, as it means being debt free and having a fresh start. There are risks involved too though, as leaving the property market and renting for a while is a bit of a gamble.

If house prices go up or mortgages get harder to obtain it could be hard to get back on the ladder. On the other hand, house prices dropping could mean you enter back into the property market in stronger position. Predicting the property market is outside my area of expertise, so it's not something I'd be comfortable speculating about.

The other scenario is to stay in the house and try to clear your debts out of your income. The success of this strategy depends on your ability to have enough spare income to be able to clear the debts in a reasonable timescale. You mention you're paying £249 a month, which would take 52 months to clear if not interest or charges are being added (but this is a big IF).

You mention that you're with debtline for your payment plan. If this is National Debtline then I suspect this will be a free debt management plan. If it's another organisation (there are some with similar names) then you may be having fees deducted which will mean less money is going to your debts.

If you'd like some in depth debt advice or are currently paying monthly fees for your payment plan, I'd recommend getting in touch with us. We can give you advice online, using our Debt Remedy tool (http://www.stepchange.org/DebtRemedy.aspx) or over the phone by calling our Helpline (http://www.stepchange.org/Contactus.aspx).

I'm not sure I can directly answer the question about whether you should sell your house or not. It's a big decision and there's a lot of factors to take into account.

From the details above it looks like you don't need to sell your property to clear the debts as you could continue paying them off through your income, but that doesn't mean that's the best option.

I hope this response is useful, even if I've not given a direct answer to your question.

Kind regards

James