DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 9

Mossop01

Hi splather, sorry i dont know enoygh to comment but hopefully soneone will be able to help. Good luck

jubilee14

neiljmuk wrote: »

Hi, thank you. There would be no scope for further driving down current expenses. Thats long been established. I can't actually believe how much Step Change think I need to live on. I'd be loaded with a DMP, relatively speaking and that's being modest with their suggested thresholds and little extras.

A job loss would force our hand (sort of make the decision easier) but just wondered if anyone has ever come out of one of these and then got on the property ladder for the first time afterwards. I'll never be bothered about credit for anything else but this is what is making it such a tough decision, and worry over the hassle that would be incurred by evil lenders and the stress of chasing debt if they don't comply!



Is any priority applied to non compliant lenders by Step Change - (eg if I have 12 debtors and 4 don't play ball, they get paid in full but the other have a little less to compensate)?

Sorry, too many questions when so much info is already available.


I'm guessing Step change would also advise on benefits and stuff? It seems ludicrous my salary of £26k would prohibit my Wife getting anything if out of work.

Am afraid cant answer definitively on the mortgage might be worth posting the question on the mortgage board too. Although if you do have surplus to save the deposit if you can make it large enough eg 40% there are specialist out there who provide mortgage with bad credit. May pay higher interest to start off with but you wont have to fork out for cc debts at same time and in a few years credit will start to improve.

SC dont usually proritise anyone even if they dont play ball. they spread your DMP equally to all. They are a bit particular about that. But most big lenders are playing ball as far as DMP. Freezing interest is another story!

Not sure if SC will advise on benefits but might direct you. If your OH has been working even though might not get Income based JSA should still get contribution JSA providing they earned enough NI.

As you say life can be a lot easier with DMP from cost of living point of view. However there is no CC safety blanket anymore so budgeting and Emergency FUnds (that could have been a nice meal out before) are really essential . Good luck with whatever you do.

neiljmuk

jubilee14 wrote: »

Am afraid cant answer definitively on the mortgage might be worth posting the question on the mortgage board too. Although if you do have surplus to save the deposit if you can make it large enough eg 40% there are specialist out there who provide mortgage with bad credit. May pay higher interest to start off with but you wont have to fork out for cc debts at same time and in a few years credit will start to improve.

SC dont usually proritise anyone even if they dont play ball. they spread your DMP equally to all. They are a bit particular about that. But most big lenders are playing ball as far as DMP. Freezing interest is another story!

Not sure if SC will advise on benefits but might direct you. If your OH has been working even though might not get Income based JSA should still get contribution JSA providing they earned enough NI.

As you say life can be a lot easier with DMP from cost of living point of view. However there is no CC safety blanket anymore so budgeting and Emergency FUnds (that could have been a nice meal out before) are really essential . Good luck with whatever you do.

Thanks for the advice. If they don't freeze interest then does the debt not come down potentially? Credit cards only ask for the bare minimum anyways?

Think I'll have a look on the Mortgage board. Going to put name down on Council registers too to get rent costs down now and potential buy to let options in the future... Big step that though..

Going to also get an old intelligent finance savings acount on the go and fill it with extra income bits, Top Cash back / 10 a day challenge type revenue if possible too :rotfl:

Time_to_face_the_music

neiljmuk wrote: »

This is the only thing that puts me off a DMP though. Hi everyone by the way lol! I'm not on the property ladder yet, and a DMP is the only way I'll get out of debt in the next 3 to 4 years and be able to save up a wedge for a deposit over time too but then my credit rating will be smashed to bits and is only bad now due to the amount of debt. However if I keep clinging on for dear life it will take decades to get debt free and a deposit....

My hand my be forced though if my Wife loses her job. I'm on £26k so with a wife and Baby it looks like we get nothing just because I earn about the average. From what I can tell, she would not even get job seekers allowance. It's stupid!

neiljmuk wrote: »

Hi, thank you. There would be no scope for further driving down current expenses. Thats long been established. I can't actually believe how much Step Change think I need to live on. I'd be loaded with a DMP, relatively speaking and that's being modest with their suggested thresholds and little extras.

A job loss would force our hand (sort of make the decision easier) but just wondered if anyone has ever come out of one of these and then got on the property ladder for the first time afterwards. I'll never be bothered about credit for anything else but this is what is making it such a tough decision, and worry over the hassle that would be incurred by evil lenders and the stress of chasing debt if they don't comply!

Is any priority applied to non compliant lenders by Step Change - (eg if I have 12 debtors and 4 don't play ball, they get paid in full but the other have a little less to compensate)?

Sorry, too many questions when so much info is already available.

I'm guessing Step change would also advise on benefits and stuff? It seems ludicrous my salary of £26k would prohibit my Wife getting anything if out of work.

Hi Neil and welcome :hello:

If you think a DMP could get you out of debt in 3 to 4 years, have you tried a snowball calculator to see if you can do this on your own?

A DMP will trash your credit rating, there is no ifs about it, it's a certainty. Unfortunately you are also at the mercy of your creditors as to when they default you, so there is no guarantee of an immediate default which will be gone in 6 years.

I assume you know there is also no guarantee of frozen interest, some do and some don't and there seems to be no hard and fast rules.

There is no ability to alter payments to creditors who do not play ball on interest. This is part of the reason why we came out of our DMP and took over ourselves. StepChange also have a strange way of calculating payments based on your minimum payment, rather than your total debt. This caused us issues over reaching minimum payments quickly and having previously frozen interest reintroduced.

We knew we never wanted credit again so were happy to start out with a CCCS (now StepChange) DMP, taking it over ourselves when we had the confidence and knowledge to do so. If we were in your position, i.e. wanting a mortgage in the near future, I am not convinced it is a path we would have taken.

Time_to_face_the_music

Splather wrote: »

Hi guys

Just wondering if anyone had any advice regarding my friend's situation, which Fermi kindly reposted for me here (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=59452273&postcount=242)?

Many thanks!

Edit: I've just found an article online where the Halifax say that interest is automatically frozen when a DMP is entered into - could this be useful? It's on the last paragraph of this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/feb/08/debt-management-plans-adding-interest

Hi Splather and welcome :hello:

Has your friend taken this issue to the FOS?

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm

If they have written to Halifax and not had a satisfactory response within 8 weeks, they can take this to the FOS now.

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Splather wrote: »

Hi guys

Just wondering if anyone had any advice regarding my friend's situation, which Fermi kindly reposted for me here (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=59452273&postcount=242)?

Many thanks!

Edit: I've just found an article online where the Halifax say that interest is automatically frozen when a DMP is entered into - could this be useful? It's on the last paragraph of this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/feb/08/debt-management-plans-adding-interest

Lowest I got Hellifex too was 12.9% but they did refund me 10 months interest after going to FOS. They are dreadful to deal with in my opinion, kept insisting I was paying too much, no knowledge of DMP and late charges. My advice is approach FOS,

Good luck

HHx

RonniesMummy

Evening all,
been a bit absent recently, anxiously waiting on the 25th so creditors start to get payments, spoke to aqua yesterday, they wont accept a dmp until 3 months after the last time the card was used and will still add interest and charges until 1st april, such an annoyance, is there anything I can do to change their mind? A letter maybe?

Hope everyone is well!
Going to catch up with the posts now!

x

Splather

Hi Hopelessly Hopeful and Time To Face The Music..

Yeah, the letter they got back from Halifax was in response to a formal letter of complaint. In the response they were told to ring a dept at Halifax to discuss. They've just done that and got told to get in touch with FOS by a rather useless waste of shoeleather at Halifax, so that's happening now.

They seem to be rather disorganised - a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing (Halifax, not my friend!).

According to Stepchange they should have communicated that the interest freeze was temporary, but never did to either them or my friend. Hopefully FOS will have more luck with them. Anyone know what sort of average time FOS take to turn complaints around? I know they have 8 weeks but I'm wondering if it's normally less?

cocoa1990

Find_The_Real wrote: »

Good luck with DMP Cocoa1990, although it seems like a lot of things to take on board it isn't as painful or complicated as it may seem.

Just a really important thing to note as you haven't spoken with SC yet is to open a new bank account with someone you haven't got debts with before you contact them by letter to tell them you are entering into a DMP and make sure your wages are paid into that asap, especially if the loan is with whom you bank with as they are getting really good doing the right of offset procedure. Then just send off a token payment with a letter explaining the situation.

Good luck with it all and there are loads of people on where who give wonderful advice to any question so don't be afraid to ask.

Thanks! I've got my application pack now that I'm working through. I've already organised a new bank account and have provided my work with the details, hopefully for next payday.

My other big worry is people contacting me at work. Is there any way I can stop them doing this? I doubt they're likely to follow my polite requests, but in the long term personal calls could jeopardise my job and my ability to repay

Find_The_Real

You can certainly make it clear in the letter you are going to send out, perhaps making it bold so they get the message. I only had one call at work and as soon as I asked them to remove the business number from their records as I was not allowed personal calls at work they did. Although I may have forgotten to mention I am rarely in the office anyway.