The path to take from here...

KirstyO

Good Morning all,

I appreciate it has been a while since I've been around here but my life's gone through a few jumbles in the past 12 months.

Thankfully things seem to be coming right now, but i've moved house twice, changed jobs, my Dad has fought a cancer battle (we're waiting to find out if he's won, but the signs are good), Mum has an as yet undiagnosed illness, and I've had to pretty much rebuild my friendship group from scratch.

I am proud however that I have kept up with my DMP payments all this time, and have had no comeback from any creditors.

I am shortly to be in a VERY fortunate position where I have some inheritance money coming through. This is from my great grandmas house which is finally going through nearly two years after it was put on the market. My gran has requested that I put half of the sum into savings, which I will do because it will be the first time i've ever had a four figure sum to my name and is a good springboard towards a house deposit, and secondly I can't not do what my gran wants as I wasn't written into the inheritance in the will, my gran has just decided she wants me to have a little bit of her share.

So after my grans request is fulfilled I have what I think is enough to clear off my reamining debts (HOORAY!). What I am now asking for is advice really. I have had the debts as they stand (ie as much interest frozen as possible, no more lending etc) for about 18 months, some of the debts have been building up for about five years, others were the last bit of bad lending i managed to find before the inevitable happened.

Are these debts old enough to offer F&F, if so, given the age of the debts what percentage should I start at? As I'm on a DMP with stepchange, can they make offers on my behalf if I instruct, or do they have to come from me?

Any thoughts gratefully appreciated. I've not had any up to date statements in a while but the debts are roughly to the below values:

Lloyds Credit Card £1100
Vanquis C/C £600
HSBC overdraft £875
Argos Card £100

I will probably have about £2500 to throw at it, but if I can get them gone for nearer 2k I'd be MUCH happier

Any thoughts gratefully received.

Kirsty xxx

sourcrates

Hi,
The general consensus of opinion on here seems to be, start low, and go up slightly, start at 30% and see what they say, I would do this myself, make your offer in writing, there are some excellent template letters for this on this site, see what they say, if the debts are 5 yrs plus they may be close to been statute barred, which means the creditor cannot get a judgement in court, maybe worth checking this out first, only problem if you've been paying through a DMP then that counts as acknowledgement of the debt and may of reset the clock so to speak, are the accounts with a DCA or still with original creditor ? DCA`s will usually accept a lower amount as they have paid less for the account to begin with, try my advice and see what happens, good luck !!