Struggling with debt? Ask a debt advisor a question

StepChange_Jen

haki_master wrote: »

I had a UK paypal account in my name all legit for some stupid security reasons and after all documents provided paypal decided to shut it down indefinitely. I wasn't checking my account for long time as it was to be closed and some days ago i noticed there negative balance from a couple of chargebacks. Then after some time i get a call from paypal i was busy so didnt give out any information and told them to call me again. I searched this number and it is from paypal department that resolved negative balance. They kept calling for a few days but i didnt answer them, nothing really much to say to these crooks that shut down my account for no good reason and now that some buyers made chargebacks they want me to cover negative balance in an indefinitely limited account. My question is since the address of that account is a real one but i moved i dont live there anymore can the collection agency find my current address? Will my bank give out my real address? Should i just go and change my address in the bank and then close that bank account linked with that paypal account? After how much time does paypal give this to the collection agency in UK? I will be out of the country in 4 months so wondering if i can skip this encounter with the collection agency or not? I am not a UK citizen, also if the collection agency finds me whats the best way to tackle this issue, deny everything associated with the account or make a re-payment settlement and stall as much possible as i leave in 4 months? All advice much appreciated

Hi there, thanks for posting

As a charity we’d encourage you to take the steps to deal with your debts rather than ignore them. If you do owe the debt, it’d be best to get in touch with PayPal to see if you can come to an agreement about repaying it. If you’d like some advice on what to do in this situation, please feel free to give our Helpline a call for some help: http://www.stepchange.org/Contactus.aspx


If you’re disputing that you owe the money this is something you’d need to follow up with PayPal too. You could do this by using their complaints process or getting in touch with their customer service team for help on what to do.



When it comes to your contact details, it’s normally seen as your responsibility to keep your accounts updated with your most current address. This is so your creditors can get in touch with you if they need to.



If you ignore the debt, it could lead to court action being started by the creditor in an attempt to retrieve the money. When a court sends out paperwork, they work on the basis that the recipient has received the paperwork, as they assume you’ll keep your creditors updated with the correct information. If court paperwork goes to an old address, it could mean you don’t get a chance to dispute that you owe the debt (if this is the case) or you don’t get a chance to put forward a repayment plan that suits your budget.



If your current address is listed on your credit file, a creditor may be able to see it this way anyway.



If a creditor decides to sell a debt to a debt collection agency, there’s no specific timeframe for when they’ll choose to do it so it’d be hard to offer advice about what this could be, if it happens.

Again, if the debt does get passed onto a debt collection agency and you ignore it, it could lead to court action. A county court judgement can be granted to a creditor even if you’re not in contact with them or you’re out of the country. You can read more about what your creditors can do to get you to repay a debt here:
http://www.stepchange.org/Debtinformationandadvice/Whatyourcreditorscando.aspx


I hope this has helped but if you’ve got any more questions please let us know.


Kind regards,


Jen

StepChange_Jen

little_tortilla wrote: »

Hi

My old landlord emailed me a letter he opened in my name - He said he thought it was junk and opened it. The letter is from 22 Jan 2016 and it basically stated that an old outstanding balance for electric had not been paid on an flat I lived in between 2011 to 2012 - this is now being recovered from debt collection company.

It didnt say the supplier or any other details but I emailed my ex, who i was living with and recalled that in previous emails, that on a final call to them in 2012, EDF were going to send me a letter to my new address, setting up a monthly direct debit to pay off the £200 outstanding balance.
They had my new address and phone number, and basically I forgot to chase it up but I didnt get any correspondance from them about this bill. No letters at all and we lived at the 'new' address for 2 years.

Now its 4 years and also 4 flatshares later. They dont have my new address. Just a very old address and I wouldn't have even read the letter if my old landlord hadn't even opened it. (which Im sure is illegal anyway). He just wants me to contact them to say I dont live there, which I'm sure he could do to be fair.

I'm wondering what the legal standpoint is on this, and as its been so ridiculously long, and no previous contact has been made, do I need to pay this off?

I don't think its affected any credit rating in terms of the fact that I haven't had any problems getting a credit card and i don't really plan on buying a house for at least 2-5 years so I don't know what the long term implications are of this?

Any help would be appreciated as I've never had this issue before.

Hi there,


Thanks for posting.


Our general stance is if you owe a debt, we’d encourage you to take the steps to deal with it. As a charity, this is something we can offer you advice on and we offer a range of free debt solutions if you’re worried about the impact repaying debt could have on your finances.


If you choose to ignore the debt, it could lead to the creditor starting court action to get you to repay it. You can read more about what court action your creditors can take here:


http://www.stepchange.org/Debtinformationandadvice/Whatyourcreditorscando/Courtaction.aspx


If your creditor starts court action, for example, they apply for a County Court judgment (a court order for you to repay the debt) this could impact your credit file and you may find it difficult to take out further credit in the future. If the court order is ignored, this could lead to further action, for example the use of bailiffs.


It’s important to note here, that it’s considered your responsibility to keep your creditors updated with your current address. This is so they can get in touch with you if they need to. Although I appreciate this is a bit frustrating as it’s an old energy supplier and that you’d forgotten about the bill and so, probably wouldn’t think about keeping them updated.


If you’d like to take the steps to repay the debt, it might be worth getting in touch with the supplier and asking them about your repayment options. If you’re worried about how you’ll afford repayments, you can always give our Helpline a call for some advice. You can find out how to get in touch with us here:

http://www.stepchange.org/Contactus.aspx


I hope this helps,


Jen

StepChange_Jen

rixy74 wrote: »

Hi i have just received 2 massive bills for mobile phones and i have called the company's to see if i can get them reduced a little but no help from the company's

1 id mobile i took out a 30 day rolling contract for a internet dongal my daughter seems to have gone over the data allowance and when i looked at the bank statement they had charged me £585.00.:mad:

2 EE my wife had a phone with a 1000 mins but because we were moving and didnt have a home phone she was using her mobile and went over so i have a bill for £500 from them.

i understand we used the data/mins but i called both company's to see if they could help but no help from anybody, do you have any advise to maybe recover a little money from id or reduce the bill from EE
thanks

Hi there,


Thanks for posting.


If you feel you’ve been charged unfairly, or have been charged an amount that wasn’t agreed to in your original agreement with the phone company, you could make a complaint to them.


If you do owe the amount the phone company is requesting and you think you’ll struggle to repay it, I’d suggest you get in touch with them to let them know about the situation. This way, they’ll know you’re not ignoring the debt and they may let you arrange a repayment plan with them.


You could also get in touch with our Helpline for advice, if you’re worried about the impact the bill will have on your finances. You can find out how to get in touch with our Helpline here:

http://www.stepchange.org/Contactus.aspx


I hope this has helped,


Jen

lacoste1985_2

Hi

I am writing this on behalf of my partner who has debts totalling double his wages [approx. 18k]. The debt consists of credit cards, loans, hire purchase and has accumulated over the last few years. Up until June last year he was working 25 hours a week as a Personal Trainer [employed] on a salary of around £11,300 a year. On 6th June he got dismissed from his job after a disagreement with his boss. He spent 4 months working as a cleaner, averaging around 10 hours a week for min wage and decided to turn a bad situation around by signing up to a degree in Computing with OU to start in Jan 2016. On top of this he got a job delivering indians on a Friday night for £20 a week cash in hand [plus petrol and tips]. He has also taken on casual bar work at our local football stadium with fairly regular work a few times a month. He took a full time job on in November last year but after a few weeks realised it wasnt for him and that he would be unable to work 45 hrs a week and study the degree at the same time [which demands 16-18 hrs a week study]. He managed to get one of his old cleaning jobs back and is now averaging 16 hours a week + has also got a 2nd delivery job on a Sunday delivering Chinese’s.

Current income is as follows:

cleaning - approx £107 a week (this can be more, but can also be less as he is on a part time contract with a min of 2 hrs work a week)
delivery work - guaranteed £44 a week [plus tips and petrol which usually equate to around £30-35 a week on top of the £44)
casual bar work - approx £40 a month, sometimes more, however this job is seasonal and only runs Sept - May in line with the football season.

Remaining current debts are as follows:

Hire purchase agreement on car: £1581 (final payment due August 2018)
Hire purchase on sofa: £450 (final payment due Aug 2018)
Bank of Scotland credit card: £1593 (interest free until 3/6/16 & then 17.95% APR)
MBNA credit card: £2774 (interest free until 18/1/17 & then 19% APR)
Tesco credit card: £2086 (currently paying interest at 1.31% a month)
Barclaycard credit card: £2875 (interest free until 5/5/18 + then 18.9% APR)
Tesco personal unsecured loan: £6882.48 (final payment due 5/9/19)

Partner is currently paying the following towards all of the above [per month]:

Hire purchase agreement on car: £51
Hire purchase on sofa: £15
Bank of Scotland credit card: £16.25 (min payment)
MBNA credit card: £28 (min payment)
Tesco credit card: £85 (which covers the cost of 2 petrol fill ups a month and is the only thing he is using a credit card for)
Barclaycard credit card: £66 (min payment)
Tesco personal unsecured loan: £156 a month (fixed amount)

Other regular monthly commitments:
Denplan (dentist subscription) = £18
Mobile phone (sim only plan) = £12
Bank account fee = £10 (which provides phone insurance, breakdown cover that he needs and has used before)
Car funds (towards car insurance, tax, MOT etc) = £80
Xmas funds £20
Social allowance = £20

The situation my partner is in is that he is no longer earning the same amount he was when he was a Personal Trainer and received a guaranteed salary every month. He has spent the past 3 or so years getting balance transfer card after bal trans card and moving money round all the time to avoid paying any interest, which was all very well and good until he lost his job. We recently filled in the bal transfer pre eligibility checker on this site to see if he would be eligible for a new bal transfer card once the promotional rate ends on the Bank of Scotland card in June 2016 but the checker said he was unlikely to get any [we’re presuming due to his low wages] and the fact he already has so much debt. Once 3rd June arrives we’ve worked out he will have a remaining balance on the bank of Scotland card of £1544 + interest on top of this. He is only paying the min payment at the moment as this is all he can afford. 6 months after this in Jan 2017 the interest rate on the MBNA card will also end and we will be in the same predicament with a balance of £2466 also earning interest.

The Barclaycard we are not too worried about as this is interest free until May 2018.
The personal loan with Tesco is also a fixed amount and will not change.
The hire purchase agreement on the car is fixed until Aug 2018.
The HP on the sofa is interest free. So these things we are not so worried about.

We have looked into DMP’s but all credit cards have to be surrendered once you go onto one and because my partner needs his car for all his work, there are times when he might have to fill up more than 3 times a month. His boss pays his petrol to and from cleans but she is not always around to fill up his car when he needs it. So as a rule of thumb because his petrol allowance varies, he only uses his Tesco credit card for this to ensure he is never caught short. If he went onto a DMP he would not have this ‘luxury’ and would have to turn down work if he did not have funds to get there.

We considered consolidating all his debts with one consolidation loan. We contacted Tesco bank to see if they could offer him one big loan of 15k to cover most of the debt but he got rejected. We then tried a further 2 websites where he got rejected again. We gave up trying after this because it could be detrimental to his credit file.

We do not want to consider bankruptcy as we feel this is possibly the worst option.

We currently live together in a private rented flat of which I pay everything as he does not have any spare money to contribute to any of the bills plus I would rather he use all his wages towards his debt. I have 3 jobs myself and do not have any spare money to pay my partners debts for him. It is a struggle just paying rent plus bills and everything for 2 people let alone paying someone elses bills!!

He is also not in a position to give up his course with the OU. He has worked as a personal trainer/fitness instructor all his life and has been on a salary of around 11k since I have known him [7 years] so he is doing this for a change of career and to better himself.

We do not know what to do, what we should be paying off first. Weeks where he gets extra cash from delivering we are taking it all to the bank and using it to pay chunks off his Tesco card as this is the one he uses the most. The other credit cards have not been spent on, were purely obtained to transfer balance onto.

Please can someone help us.

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 604
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 604

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 66
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 0
Electricity............................. 0
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 12
TV Licence.............................. 0
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 0
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 120
Road tax................................ 10.83
Car Insurance........................... 22.5
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 53
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 18.27
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 20
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Bank account fee........................ 9.95
Total monthly expenses.................. 352.55


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 0
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 0


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
Mortgage...................... 0........(0)........0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 2031.....(66).......0
Total secured & HP debts...... 2031......-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
Bank of Scotland...............1593......16.25.....0
MBNA credit card...............2774......27.74.....0
Tesco credit card..............2086......54........15.72
Tesco loan.....................6882.48...156.......9
Barclaycard c/card.............2875......28.75.....0
Total unsecured debts..........16210.48..282.74....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 604
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 352.55
Available for debt repayments........... 251.45
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 282.74
Amount short for making debt repayments. -31.29

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -2,031
Total Unsecured debt.................... -16,210.48
Net Assets.............................. -18,241.48

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

StepChange_Jen

lacoste1985 wrote: »

Hi

I am writing this on behalf of my partner who has debts totalling double his wages [approx. 18k]. The debt consists of credit cards, loans, hire purchase and has accumulated over the last few years. Up until June last year he was working 25 hours a week as a Personal Trainer [employed] on a salary of around £11,300 a year. On 6th June he got dismissed from his job after a disagreement with his boss. He spent 4 months working as a cleaner, averaging around 10 hours a week for min wage and decided to turn a bad situation around by signing up to a degree in Computing with OU to start in Jan 2016. On top of this he got a job delivering indians on a Friday night for £20 a week cash in hand [plus petrol and tips]. He has also taken on casual bar work at our local football stadium with fairly regular work a few times a month. He took a full time job on in November last year but after a few weeks realised it wasnt for him and that he would be unable to work 45 hrs a week and study the degree at the same time [which demands 16-18 hrs a week study]. He managed to get one of his old cleaning jobs back and is now averaging 16 hours a week + has also got a 2nd delivery job on a Sunday delivering Chinese’s.

Current income is as follows:

cleaning - approx £107 a week (this can be more, but can also be less as he is on a part time contract with a min of 2 hrs work a week)
delivery work - guaranteed £44 a week [plus tips and petrol which usually equate to around £30-35 a week on top of the £44)
casual bar work - approx £40 a month, sometimes more, however this job is seasonal and only runs Sept - May in line with the football season.

Remaining current debts are as follows:

Hire purchase agreement on car: £1581 (final payment due August 2018)
Hire purchase on sofa: £450 (final payment due Aug 2018)
Bank of Scotland credit card: £1593 (interest free until 3/6/16 & then 17.95% APR)
MBNA credit card: £2774 (interest free until 18/1/17 & then 19% APR)
Tesco credit card: £2086 (currently paying interest at 1.31% a month)
Barclaycard credit card: £2875 (interest free until 5/5/18 + then 18.9% APR)
Tesco personal unsecured loan: £6882.48 (final payment due 5/9/19)

Partner is currently paying the following towards all of the above [per month]:

Hire purchase agreement on car: £51
Hire purchase on sofa: £15
Bank of Scotland credit card: £16.25 (min payment)
MBNA credit card: £28 (min payment)
Tesco credit card: £85 (which covers the cost of 2 petrol fill ups a month and is the only thing he is using a credit card for)
Barclaycard credit card: £66 (min payment)
Tesco personal unsecured loan: £156 a month (fixed amount)

Other regular monthly commitments:
Denplan (dentist subscription) = £18
Mobile phone (sim only plan) = £12
Bank account fee = £10 (which provides phone insurance, breakdown cover that he needs and has used before)
Car funds (towards car insurance, tax, MOT etc) = £80
Xmas funds £20
Social allowance = £20

The situation my partner is in is that he is no longer earning the same amount he was when he was a Personal Trainer and received a guaranteed salary every month. He has spent the past 3 or so years getting balance transfer card after bal trans card and moving money round all the time to avoid paying any interest, which was all very well and good until he lost his job. We recently filled in the bal transfer pre eligibility checker on this site to see if he would be eligible for a new bal transfer card once the promotional rate ends on the Bank of Scotland card in June 2016 but the checker said he was unlikely to get any [we’re presuming due to his low wages] and the fact he already has so much debt. Once 3rd June arrives we’ve worked out he will have a remaining balance on the bank of Scotland card of £1544 + interest on top of this. He is only paying the min payment at the moment as this is all he can afford. 6 months after this in Jan 2017 the interest rate on the MBNA card will also end and we will be in the same predicament with a balance of £2466 also earning interest.

The Barclaycard we are not too worried about as this is interest free until May 2018.
The personal loan with Tesco is also a fixed amount and will not change.
The hire purchase agreement on the car is fixed until Aug 2018.
The HP on the sofa is interest free. So these things we are not so worried about.

We have looked into DMP’s but all credit cards have to be surrendered once you go onto one and because my partner needs his car for all his work, there are times when he might have to fill up more than 3 times a month. His boss pays his petrol to and from cleans but she is not always around to fill up his car when he needs it. So as a rule of thumb because his petrol allowance varies, he only uses his Tesco credit card for this to ensure he is never caught short. If he went onto a DMP he would not have this ‘luxury’ and would have to turn down work if he did not have funds to get there.

We considered consolidating all his debts with one consolidation loan. We contacted Tesco bank to see if they could offer him one big loan of 15k to cover most of the debt but he got rejected. We then tried a further 2 websites where he got rejected again. We gave up trying after this because it could be detrimental to his credit file.

We do not want to consider bankruptcy as we feel this is possibly the worst option.

We currently live together in a private rented flat of which I pay everything as he does not have any spare money to contribute to any of the bills plus I would rather he use all his wages towards his debt. I have 3 jobs myself and do not have any spare money to pay my partners debts for him. It is a struggle just paying rent plus bills and everything for 2 people let alone paying someone elses bills!!

He is also not in a position to give up his course with the OU. He has worked as a personal trainer/fitness instructor all his life and has been on a salary of around 11k since I have known him [7 years] so he is doing this for a change of career and to better himself.

We do not know what to do, what we should be paying off first. Weeks where he gets extra cash from delivering we are taking it all to the bank and using it to pay chunks off his Tesco card as this is the one he uses the most. The other credit cards have not been spent on, were purely obtained to transfer balance onto.

Please can someone help us.

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 604
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 604

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 66
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 0
Electricity............................. 0
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 12
TV Licence.............................. 0
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 0
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 120
Road tax................................ 10.83
Car Insurance........................... 22.5
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 53
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 18.27
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 20
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Bank account fee........................ 9.95
Total monthly expenses.................. 352.55


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 0
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 0


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
Mortgage...................... 0........(0)........0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 2031.....(66).......0
Total secured & HP debts...... 2031......-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
Bank of Scotland...............1593......16.25.....0
MBNA credit card...............2774......27.74.....0
Tesco credit card..............2086......54........15.72
Tesco loan.....................6882.48...156.......9
Barclaycard c/card.............2875......28.75.....0
Total unsecured debts..........16210.48..282.74....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 604
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 352.55
Available for debt repayments........... 251.45
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 282.74
Amount short for making debt repayments. -31.29

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -2,031
Total Unsecured debt.................... -16,210.48
Net Assets.............................. -18,241.48

Created using the SOA calculator at www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

Hi there,


Thanks for posting.


I’m sorry to hear about this situation. Often debts can get out of hand when you experience a drop income. However it’s good to hear you’ve been thinking about the steps you can take to deal with the issue.


In this situation it’d be best if you get in touch with us for some free debt advice. There are two ways you can do this, either through our Helpline or using our online debt advice tool, Debt Remedy.


If your partner doesn’t want to talk to us then you can do it on his behalf with his permission.

If you call our Helpline, our advisors will ask for information about his debts, budget and income. They’ll use this to recommend a debt solution suited to his situation and you’ll be able to discuss your options with them in terms of the payments for the car and petrol costs. You can find out how to contact our Helpline here: http://www.stepchange.org/Contactus.aspx


Our Debt Remedy tool works in the same way as our Helpline, except you just need to enter your information online. You can find Debt Remedy here: http://www.stepchange.org/Debtremedy.aspx

If you decide to proceed with the debt solution we’ve recommend, we’ll be able to let you know the next steps to take and can provide you with support along the way.


I hope this has helped,


Jen

welshdaisy

Hi I'm registered with step change and have a plan in place which I pay monthly. This morning I received a letter from Barclaycard informing me that they had placed a default notice on my account. I contacted them and informed them that step change pay every month however they answered that as this was an informal arrangement that they had changed their policy and that a 3% rate was now in place and not 1% which I was paying , due to this they were passing my debt to a debt collection agency and the default notice could not be removed? I am trying to sell my house as I have a little equity in it so that I can pay off all of my debts and get a new mortgage however with this default notice now on my account this will be almost impossible to do. I'm devastated as o have tried so hard to get out of debt and have not missed a payment but yet the s happens? Is there anything that I can do to remove the default notice? I have offered to pay the 3% payments although they say that it's too late now and that the default notice stands. They tell me that they wrote to me in December although this only highlighted an informal arrangement needing to be changed but as I was already with step change I thought that this was a formal arrangement? I don't know what to do?

Former_StepChange_Rachel

welshdaisy wrote: »

Hi I'm registered with step change and have a plan in place which I pay monthly. This morning I received a letter from Barclaycard informing me that they had placed a default notice on my account. I contacted them and informed them that step change pay every month however they answered that as this was an informal arrangement that they had changed their policy and that a 3% rate was now in place and not 1% which I was paying , due to this they were passing my debt to a debt collection agency and the default notice could not be removed? I am trying to sell my house as I have a little equity in it so that I can pay off all of my debts and get a new mortgage however with this default notice now on my account this will be almost impossible to do. I'm devastated as o have tried so hard to get out of debt and have not missed a payment but yet the s happens? Is there anything that I can do to remove the default notice? I have offered to pay the 3% payments although they say that it's too late now and that the default notice stands. They tell me that they wrote to me in December although this only highlighted an informal arrangement needing to be changed but as I was already with step change I thought that this was a formal arrangement? I don't know what to do?

Hi there, thanks for getting in touch.

If you’re on a DMP with us or any other organisation, in most cases you will be making less than the minimum contractual payment to each of your creditors. This is because your monthly DMP payment amount is worked out based on what you have left over once you’ve covered your monthly living expenses and priority household bills.

When you pay less than the minimum amount on a debt, this is classed as a default and creditors usually update your credit file when this happens. Defaults are only usually disputable when they’ve been issued in error, which isn’t likely to be the case in this instance.

A DMP is not classed as a formal arrangement as it’s not legally binding. A formal arrangement is usually something where you would be declared insolvent, such as petitioning for bankruptcy, having a Debt Relief Order granted or setting up an IVA. When a person gets in touch with us and goes through the budget, we would have considered all debt solutions available to you and we only recommend formal arrangements if they’re in your best interest.

While I can appreciate your frustration over the default notice you’ve received, this doesn’t automatically mean that you won’t be eligible for a mortgage in the future. Lenders have their own terms and conditions when it comes to mortgage products so it may be worth looking into this before you apply. We have financial solutions team here at the charity who can provide impartial mortgage advice. You can find out more about them here: http://www.stepchange.org/Howwecanhelpyou/Mortgagesandequityrelease/Mortgages.aspx

Kind regards

Rachel

meandmineareone

Hi there,
I cancelled and cleared an outstanding balance with SKY over 4 years ago, this morning I received a letter from SKY saying that they had sold on the 'outstanding debt' ( that I had cleared years ago! ) to a debt collection agency named CABOT, they stated in the letter that they had done this as they had made several failed attempts to resolve the situation etc? firstly I as stated I have cleared the outstanding balance when I moved over to BT, in 2011, and I have NEVER, received any correspondence, through phone,email or letter in all of these years requesting any outstanding payments. what do I do?

LouGals

I have just over £3000 credit card debt on a HSBC credit card. I also have a £1300 overdraft which I live in, again a HSBC account. What is the best way to deal with this debt. I never miss minimum payments but am paying high interest.

Is there a product that will deal with both issues or do I need to get two different 0% credit cards, one to transfer the credit card debt and then another money transfer for the overdraft?

scooterbabe84

Hi,
I have split with my ex partner and we have a joint account. The account has an overdraft of £2000 and it has also gone over the overdraft and total outstanding is £2500, which was accrued by my ex. My ex has signed an IVA and has attached the joint account to it without my knowledge. I have now received a final demand from the bank for the full amount. They have said that if I don't pay the full amount I will have to set up a payment plan and this will then put a default on my credit report.


Do I have any other options apart from paying the full amount, which will mean that I have to take out a loan or credit card?


Thanks