Full and Final Settlement while on DMP with CCCS

Jamesdeer001

Hi,

I have had a DMP with the CCCS (now StepChange) for 3 years. I originally was paying £555 on a 28k debt, I'm now (and have been for about a year) paying £406 on the remaining 14k.

My sister is offering to repay the debt for me (so that I will no longer be paying interest, to help clean up my credit file and hopefully so we can negotiate a smaller amount) but can only go up to about 70% of the debt.

Obviously I want to repay as much as possible for a F&F so am looking for advise on how much to offer and tips to guide me through the process. I appreciate that StepChange also offer this service so was wondering if anyone had feedback on this?

Kind regards

Deep_In_Debt

Hi

Are any of your debts with DCAs? DCAs tend to accept lower amounts than the original creditors.

Original creditors tend accept nothing less than about 70% where as DCA's buy the debts for pennies in the £ so you could start low with them say 30% and then you have room for negotiation.

Make sure you keep this in writing (National Debtline website has a good template letter you can use for this). Make sure you ask them to mark your credit file as satisfied and they nor any third party or associate will chase you for the remainder in the future - this is important.

StepChange will usually go for the higher amount so best to try it yourself. StepChange will also have template letters for this and if you ask them they will send you addresses and contact names/departments for you to write to.

Good luck, expect a bit of to'ing and fro'ing though.

sickasachip13

Hi,

I used the National Debtline template, tweaked a little. Made two settlements earlier this year. Don't know about the CCCS provision - I did mine myself, with their knowledge.

You might find this thread interesting/useful...
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/57449659#Comment_57449659

This is a bit of my blurb from the thread: I settled with Cap One and Ikea (Ikano finance) for around 40% of what was owed. These weren't huge debts and I am on a DMP so I was happy to go forward on that amount.

The process I undertook:
I phoned them to see if, hypothetically, they were open to a F&F offer and both said they were.
I mentioned it to CCCS.
I wrote, using the template letter from the National Debtline website, adding in a few lines about being on a DMP and it being years before these debts would be paid on the DMP.
They wrote back, each looking for around 60% of the debt.
We wrote back to them with a counter offer.
They wrote back. I rang National Debtline and read the letters down the phone to them to ensure all the bases were covered in the wording.
I contacted CCCS to inform them that the F&Fs were going ahead, this was fine with them.
Sent a cheque and covering letter back to creditors.
Reduced to £0 the amount owing to these two on the CCCS file.

Job done. Stress free, just a bit of to-ing and fro-ing.

Good luck

SAAC