So...this is me! SOA & DEBTS added!

Experiment626

Hi there, my name's Pete, i'm 28 and i'm in debt...not a great deal, around £18.5k, but considering I take home about £180/week and have only £100 free a month which is eaten up by my tax bill (£6.4k with 7.5% interest a year), I can't see a way out aside from BR.

I've been lurking around these forums for a few months now, posting here and there for little snippets of information in regards to BR. Over the last month however I have put serious time and effort into researching BR, obtaining credit files, sorting out my SOA and various other bits and pieces, however instead of feeling any better, it's starting to really scare me and i'm finding I don't sleep all too well and am constantly worrying.

I've had a good think about my debts and have realised that the problems started back in March 2004 when I moved back home to live with my mum after a fairly nasty relationship breakup. I had been living down london way, I was self employed doing various forms of web design. I had the same amount of debt back then that I have now (around £18k) but I was in control, making monthly payments and having a nice chunk left over each month.

Now this is the real kick in the teeth, about 2 months after moving back to my mums which is in the middle of nowhere, there was an accident up the road whereby a car smashed into a telephone pole, cutting off the phone service which means no internet access. They promptly replaced the regular phone cable and got everyone elses phones connected, but we were on home highway ISDN connection and they neglected to fix that line, thinking it was redundant, it took day after day on the phone for them to acknowledge it had to be fixed, when they did come out there was a problem with the telegraph pole meaning the engineer couldn't climb it and they had to wait, you'll never believe...over 2 months for a cherry picker to come out! We got minimal compensation, a mobile to use while our phone was off, but this of course still meant no internet. I was basically forced into taking a low paying job due to no official qualifications or experience, the web design thing was quite a fluke to be honest. Anyway, the job change resulted in me falling way behind in payments to creditors and so on. The thing that really hit me hard was that when the phone was finally back on and we had internet, my relatively small web design escapade fell flat on it's face and I was forced into sticking with the crap job...which I am still in to this day.

So basically thats the reason I am in the debt I am now, the story seems ludicrous but I couldn't make it up if I tried. I've been meaning to make a proper hello on here for a while, a little later on today i'll post details of my debts, my SOA and get your recommendations...the short of it is that I want to go BR to sort this out, I have nothing to lose, but I have this recurring fear that for some reason my BR will be refused and i'll end up with this debt for life, preventing me from getting anywhere!

Red1708

Hi and welcome to the board,

Most of us will totally understand where you are coming from. I certainly made the decision, felt very upbeat about it one minute and then panicking over the decision the next minute. I can say that I haven't regretted the decision but still panic everytime I get a letter from the OR.

At this stage it's imperrative that you also get FREE prof advice as the judge will seek confirmation of this when you file your petition for BR. Meanwhile feel free to post your questions as we're all here to help.

Experiment626

Part 2

Right, here's my SOA, it's as trimmed down as possible, but obviously don't want to trim it down too much so as to avoid an IPA if it can be done!

I earn about £750-£780 takehome a month.

Rent £166
Council Tax £25
Electric £25
Food/Household £160
Landline/Internet £40
Water Rates £12
Tv License £6

Car Fuel £80
Car Insurance £40
Car Mot £5
Car Tax £11
Breakdown Cover £6
Maintenance £10

Opticians/Disposable contacts £31...(required for my job, due to losing them a lot)
Mobile £30...(again required for job due to working solo/remote locations)
Haircut £9
Dental/Opticians £10
Clothing £20
Holiday £10...(this is to pay for a trip for me and my gf to go and see a theatre show on our anniversary, she loves it and i'm warming to it myself tbh )

I also pay £100/month to HMRC for my income tax bill, it's the only debt I pay, because they take all of my disposable income, they won't budge on this, same as they won't freeze interest either.

HOWEVER...

This is my SOA for the time being, in the summer I leave my job and move in with my girlfriend and her parents for a month or so til we find a place together. I'll have to find a new job due to moving quite some distance away. My rent is going to double, but other bills will fall as I pay more than my fair share at the moment while living with my mum and her bf, neither are employed and live on benefits.

I did make a post a few weeks back and was advised that the OR would probably hold off on sorting out any IPA payments until I was settled in the new place and had a new job sorted. I was also told that even though I am going BR, I still have the right to choose to leave a job and change where I live when I want to.

Experiment626

Red1708 wrote: »

Hi and welcome to the board,

Most of us will totally understand where you are coming from. I certainly made the decision, felt very upbeat about it one minute and then panicking over the decision the next minute. I can say that I haven't regretted the decision but still panic everytime I get a letter from the OR.

At this stage it's imperrative that you also get FREE prof advice as the judge will seek confirmation of this when you file your petition for BR. Meanwhile feel free to post your questions as we're all here to help.

Thanks for the official welcome!

I think i've got to the point now where it's time to get advice, I have my SOA sorted, I think I have my debts totalled up, time to get in contact with someone. Should I get in contact with CCCS, Payplan and National Debtline...or just one place?

Red1708

Which ever you wish really. I used both Payplan and CCCS. Both gave me the same advice.

Experiment626

Part 3

Here are my debts in no particular order:

HMRC Income Tax - £6.4k with 7.5% interest/year (not negotiable)
LloydsTSB Bank Account #1 - £3078/OD
LloydsTSB Bank Account #2 - £3411/OD
LloydsTSB Personal Loan - £1924
Barlcaycard - £807
Barlcaycard from about 8 years ago through Cabot- £1420
USC - £347
Capital One - £221
Look Again - £740
Fantasy & Sci-Fi Book Club - £58
Sky TV - £57
Ebay - £157

For what it's worth, I had these debts 3 years back and they were being paid, they have increased by maybe £1-£2k over the last 3 years, I haven't actually obtained new credit since i've had debt problems.

eddiemno

It`s a difficult one. I went BUST 15 years ago and survived but not without its difficulties. It was such a great releif once i had excepted the outcome was inevitable. SO DONT BE AFRAID. however iwish i had gone to the Citizens advise bureau because i know that they are a great help to people in your situation and they give sound sympathetic advise...Good luck.

Experiment626

Don't mean to be a nuisance, but is there any chance someone could take a glance at my SOA and advise on what could be changed/added/deducted...cheers

betterlatethannever

I'm not brilliant at this, but it looks a pretty tight SOA,
£150 pm though for a car, is there anyway you could reduce this?
I got rid of my car that was costing me £80 pcm (plus extras for maintenance etc) i now walk and travel by bus and spend less than £40 pcm. Friends are great when you haven't got a car, they offer lifts everywhere.
If its needed for work etc, is there anyway of car sharing and splitting the costs?
Anyway i hope someone comes along who can help you more.
Good luck!

Experiment626

betterlatethannever wrote: »

£150 pm though for a car, is there anyway you could reduce this?

Thanks for the info and suggestions

I should have mentioned, this is more of an SOA to put down on my BR forms when I go ahead with it in the hope of not ending up with an IPA...however do you think the OR will have a problem with the amount i've put? The only thing I could really drop is the diesel, maybe down to £60/month, but the rest of the car fee's are pretty much fixed with no flexibility. I do need the car for work due to living in the middle of nowhere with no buses/etc, also when I move I could be working in quite varied places day by day at short notice and it would be difficult to rely on public transport in that instance.

allofadither

Hi Pete,

On the face of it your SoA looks fine to me, but I would be inclined to re-phrase your 'landline/internet' as just 'telephone'. And you have included both contact lenses and optician expenses. Might be better if you just had the one figure under 'opticians' and keep the 'dental' seperate as £10.

Hopefully other's on here will give their take on it too.

EDIT: My suggestions are based on an SoA receiving a bad response from an OR just recently, as it seemed there may have been too many seperate and detailed expenses.