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FairyGiirl

Hi, I hope someone can offer me some advice as I'm struggling..


I have a mortgage (all up to date with payments), I am a 'sole owner' but my brother is on the mortgage as a 'silent partner' - I simply didn't earn enough on paper so he came on as my guarantor. I have £11,000 of unsecured debts that I currently have agreements with each creditor that add up to about £500 a month. I have been paying these but recently my work has slowed Self employed) and I'm struggling to make the payments.
I looked on StepChange and have had one of their Debt Remedy plans emailed to me to set up a DMP through them.
I have everything all ready to go but am scared to make that final commitment.. Firstly because Im so worried I will affect my brothers credit rating - Mine is currently poor so I know he will be linked with the joint mortgage but will a DMP be worse? And will I be forced to sell my home because of the debt or my DMP?


I know a lot of people on here say the DMP are good but Im terrified of entering one. Ive stuck my head in the sand for so long but its making me ill.
If anyone has any advice I'd be really grateful. Thank you

Former_StepChange_Rory

NoMore wrote: »

@StepChange_Rory,

Are you aware that there are lot of people reporting on the forum that their expected payment from SC to Barclayard has not yet been credited and in at least one case has caused BC to to cancel the payment agreement and re instate interest :

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=68262577&postcount=4441

This is not good and appears related to the recent change in SC payment methods (changing to payment within days of receiving our money).

This is not an individual issue, as I say it appears to be affecting everybody with SC and BC payments, could you please investigate as a matter of urgency.

Thank you.

Hi NoMore,

Thanks for highlighting the thread.

On April 13th we made some changes to the way we send payments to creditors. Previously we sent payments on or around the 25th of each month, but we now send them within 5 working days of receiving the money. The frequency of your payments, the method of payment, the payment amounts and your payment dates should all remain the same as they are at the moment.

While we can’t comment on any individual issues on the forum, we’d recommend that anyone who has any questions or concerns should phone us.

Rory

StepChange_James

FairyGiirl wrote: »

Hi, I hope someone can offer me some advice as I'm struggling..


I have a mortgage (all up to date with payments), I am a 'sole owner' but my brother is on the mortgage as a 'silent partner' - I simply didn't earn enough on paper so he came on as my guarantor. I have £11,000 of unsecured debts that I currently have agreements with each creditor that add up to about £500 a month. I have been paying these but recently my work has slowed Self employed) and I'm struggling to make the payments.
I looked on StepChange and have had one of their Debt Remedy plans emailed to me to set up a DMP through them.
I have everything all ready to go but am scared to make that final commitment.. Firstly because Im so worried I will affect my brothers credit rating - Mine is currently poor so I know he will be linked with the joint mortgage but will a DMP be worse? And will I be forced to sell my home because of the debt or my DMP?


I know a lot of people on here say the DMP are good but Im terrified of entering one. Ive stuck my head in the sand for so long but its making me ill.
If anyone has any advice I'd be really grateful. Thank you

Hi FairyGiirl

Thanks for posting your message. I suspect many people will have very similar feelings before starting a DMP, it understandable to be a bit uncertain.

There's more information about the impact a financial connection has on Experian's website here: http://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/faq/AR3.html.

A DMP involves reducing payments to unsecured debts, so you've got enough money available to cover essential payments like your mortgage. So in some ways it makes it less likely you'll lose your property because there should be enough money available to keep up with your secured debt payments in full.

There's very little risk to your property from reducing payments to unsecured debts via a DMP. We expect creditors to co-operate with reduced payments we send them but if they don't they may use their debt collection process to try to get more money from you.

If you stick to the payments on a DMP and don't pay any extra then they may add some additional charges to the debt, contact you to ask for more money and/or pass the debt to a debt collection company (that doesn't have any additional power). These are the things that are most likely to happen but aren't anything to be too worried about, we'd support you if this sort of thing was causing you concern.

The more serious steps creditors can take involve using the legal system to try and get money from you. For unsecured credit debts this will usually mean applying for a County Court judgment (CCJ). This in itself doesn't affect your property, it's just the courts will decide how much they think you should pay towards the debt.

Because the courts will only expect you to pay what you can afford through a CCJ it's not something creditors tend to do if you're already making a reasonable payment through a DMP or something similar.

If a creditor does obtain a CCJ they could apply for something called a charging, which is where they ask the court to secure their debt against a property. This would mean the debt becomes like a mortgage, so if you sold the house you'd have to pay the debt off before you got any money.

A charging order wouldn't give a creditor the right to force you to sell your property though, they'd have to go back to court for something called an order for sale. It's rare that creditors apply for these sorts of orders and even more rare that a judge approves them.

I'm sorry about my rambling answer but it's hard to answer your question properly without a lot of detail. In summary it's not true to say that being on DMP can't affect your property but it's also very unlikely to happen.

If you've still got concerns then I'd recommend giving us a call on the number in your advice booklet. We'll be happy to answer any questions and if you decide against the DMP we can discuss potential alternatives with you.

This thread tends to be mostly questions and answers for us, if you'd like to discuss DMPs with people actually on them, then I'd suggest posting on the DMP support thread, which is usually fairly near the top of the debt free wannabe forum.

Kind regards

James

mismatch

Hi
This is posted in the ppi forum so my apologies if I shouldn't cross post but I'm hoping the step change gang can help me as they were so good organising my iva but I've got a little pickle and feel like I keep ringing them like a crazy lady too often lol, so anyway here's a copy and paste of my original post
Hi
Not sure if anyone can help but I entered into an iva 2 months ago which is going fine, but prior To the iva I had a claim company doing a ppi claim against 1 of the companies included in my iva. The claim company is now saying they think any compen awarded will be paid direct into the iva fund not direct to them which won't allow them to take their fee leaving me liable for the fee. Does anyone know where the money will go in this situation as I'm kinda screwed if the cc company pay it straight to the iva and I'm starting to worry a bit. The ppi people want a copy of the iva doc and I don't know If I should send it and I seem to always be asking Stepchange more silly questions so wanted to see if anyone here had a similar experience before I go annoying them again with something they probs can't answer

Thanks in advance for any advice and please delete if Im not meant cross post

StepChange_James

mismatch wrote: »

Hi
This is posted in the ppi forum so my apologies if I shouldn't cross post but I'm hoping the step change gang can help me as they were so good organising my iva but I've got a little pickle and feel like I keep ringing them like a crazy lady too often lol, so anyway here's a copy and paste of my original post
Hi
Not sure if anyone can help but I entered into an iva 2 months ago which is going fine, but prior To the iva I had a claim company doing a ppi claim against 1 of the companies included in my iva. The claim company is now saying they think any compen awarded will be paid direct into the iva fund not direct to them which won't allow them to take their fee leaving me liable for the fee. Does anyone know where the money will go in this situation as I'm kinda screwed if the cc company pay it straight to the iva and I'm starting to worry a bit. The ppi people want a copy of the iva doc and I don't know If I should send it and I seem to always be asking Stepchange more silly questions so wanted to see if anyone here had a similar experience before I go annoying them again with something they probs can't answer

Thanks in advance for any advice and please delete if Im not meant cross post

Hi Mismatch,

Don't think you're bothering us by asking "silly questions", it's fine to give us a call if ever you're not sure about something. We're here to help, so feel free to call when you don't know the answer to something.

I don't know all the details of your case but it's important to be careful with PPI reclaiming on an IVA, to make sure you're doing everything the right way.

I'm afraid to say it's unlikely you'll be able to keep any IVA refund yourself. Unless you have specifically excluded the PPI claim in your IVA agreement you would usually be required to send any money that you receive to your IVA supervisor for the benefit of all creditors.

If you give us a call and explain the sitaution we'll be able to help you work out the best way to move forward.

Kind regards

James

mostlyconfused

Hello,

I was advised this was the place to come for some help. I'm not entirely sure where I stand and if there's anything I can do but I'm hoping someone can help.

Years ago (about 9) I got an overdraft with Halifax. I was young and stupid and spent it all without putting any money back in the account. Through CCCS (now stepchange) I went on to a payment plan and started to pay this back with a token payment of £1. I have been doing this ever since and had actually forgotten all about it. Now I'm trying to get to the bottom of it but I don't have any paperwork for it.

I've checked my credit rating and it's listed as a default and is being dealt with by Cabot Financial. I rang them who said they don't have any information other than the following dates I think all of these dates were in fact earlier than I've been told):
Account opened with Halifax - 3/1/2006
Account passed to Cabot - 5/3/2012
Defaulted - 22/10/10

I have looked back through emails and have nothing. But I have just spoken to a very friendly man at my bank who confirmed the standing order for £1 was started on 30/9/2009. I also recall for a fair amount of time before this i went in to the Halifax and physically paid £1 so the repayment plan started before September 2009 for sure.

My first confusion is that I believe the default should have actually occurred earlier due to the fact my repayment plan was before the and, as a result, fallen off my credit rating. Is there any way of a) finding this out and b) if so, get my credit rating updated?

The second is, I'm not sure how long I've been paying the £1 and therefore don't know how much is actually left to pay.

Lastly, if Cabot don't have any information about the debt. what should I do about that?

Apologies for the VERY lengthy post - I thought it would be best to get everything I could think of down in the hope I might get a reply.

any advice would be very much appreciated

Sazzie23

mostlyconfused wrote: »

Hello,

I was advised this was the place to come for some help. I'm not entirely sure where I stand and if there's anything I can do but I'm hoping someone can help.

Years ago (about 9) I got an overdraft with Halifax. I was young and stupid and spent it all without putting any money back in the account. Through CCCS (now stepchange) I went on to a payment plan and started to pay this back with a token payment of £1. I have been doing this ever since and had actually forgotten all about it. Now I'm trying to get to the bottom of it but I don't have any paperwork for it.

I've checked my credit rating and it's listed as a default and is being dealt with by Cabot Financial. I rang them who said they don't have any information other than the following dates I think all of these dates were in fact earlier than I've been told):
Account opened with Halifax - 3/1/2006
Account passed to Cabot - 5/3/2012
Defaulted - 22/10/10

I have looked back through emails and have nothing. But I have just spoken to a very friendly man at my bank who confirmed the standing order for £1 was started on 30/9/2009. I also recall for a fair amount of time before this i went in to the Halifax and physically paid £1 so the repayment plan started before September 2009 for sure.

My first confusion is that I believe the default should have actually occurred earlier due to the fact my repayment plan was before the and, as a result, fallen off my credit rating. Is there any way of a) finding this out and b) if so, get my credit rating updated?

The second is, I'm not sure how long I've been paying the £1 and therefore don't know how much is actually left to pay.

Lastly, if Cabot don't have any information about the debt. what should I do about that?

Apologies for the VERY lengthy post - I thought it would be best to get everything I could think of down in the hope I might get a reply.

any advice would be very much appreciated

Hi- I'm not a debt advisor but I saw your post hadnt had a reply and thought you might be sitting wondering.

I think Stepchange should have some reference paperwork so that you can trace back when the payments started.

You might get more of a response if you post this as a new thread on the forum, click on forums, then debtfreewannabe and then you'll be on the landing page.

I believe a default date can be backdated if the creditor (Halifax) does this, but I don't know how likely that would be in this case. `

Have you checked Noddle - its a free credit history check service, it might help you sort out what's what.

Anyway hope this helps a bit, sorry can't help you with the full query, bit good luck with it,

brydo86

Hi there. Me and the wife are trying to become debt free. The wife has an old phone bill from 2007 which is roughly £600 (don't ask). I sent away the pro forma letter to have the debt agency stop sending letters as it should be time barred (I stay in Scotland) however they have just got back stating that she had made a payment of £20 back in 2012 and has therfore acknowledged the debt. Can anyone assist on what to do from here? Accept defeat?

Birdie77

Good afternoon, I'm new here and looking for a little advice, even though I do intend to visit my local CAB Monday when I'm off work. Basically Im in a mess financially and avoided the issue for too long. I have approx £12500 debts across 4 credit cards, and an overdraft.... Seperated from my fianc! in October and renting in a shared house.... I only have 30 hours contract with work and take home roughly £830 every 4 weeks..... I'm basically paying my rent £340, my mobile bill and TV Liscence, then I pay either the minimum or slightly more if I think I can manage it, it leaves very little once I've paid for food, gym membership (only £18 month) and day to day living costs..... These last 2 months have been really hard though and I'm literally broke and can't see a way out..... Any ideas on what the best option or route to take would be greatly appreciated as it's now starting to affect me mentally as well in that I'm so fed up and have nothing to be happy about anymore. Thank you.

andyparry_87

Hi
after checking my credit score online I discovered two ccj's. these are not mine. I believe the ccj's are my father's from when he was self employed. He has the same name as me which is where I believe the mix up has happened I have contacted the courts which issued them and they told me to contact the solicitors representing the companies my father owed. I did this and they offered me no help and pretty much said it's not there problem.
How can I go about having them removed as they are destroying my credit rating.
thanks Andrew parry