Can I change from a managed DMP to doing it myself?

yoshiyella

abbylou wrote: »

Many thanks for all the advice and support, some interesting thoughts. Tonight dh and I will sit down and go through all our debts on the DMP. We will write down who it is with, contact details and write down as close as we can to the figure left. We also need to see which ones are still charging interest and which ones aren't.
Next step after that is to ring Debtline and find out if we have to give a period of notice. Then the plan is to start ringing round all the creditors and asking if they will accept us managing the plan ourselves - hopefully they will. The plan is to offer them all a slightly increased payment using the money we will have spare from the management fee.
Around January/February we will have more money available to put to the debt so we will then have to decide whether to increase the payments to all the creditors or pay monthly sums off some of them. Not sure about that yet.

Be careful with what you do here as you do not want to let the creditors you are not going to increase know that other creditors are getting more. If all your debts are interest frozen then just split it equally if not put it on the ones costing in interest.

abbylou

Well last night dh and I sat down and went through all the debts. There are a couple that we haven't got an up to date balance for so need to get that but we have a more realistic idea of exactly what we owe. Today dh will ring Debtline to give them notice that the November payment will be the last. A brave step but one we have to take. Then between us we will ring round all the creditors and ask them if they will accept us managing the plan ourselves. We will be able to increase the payment to each one by about £6 too. We will also be trying to get the interest put to 0% by those still charging us. Not sure how that will go but if you don't ask.....

sourcrates

Good luck with it, im sure youll be fine:T

abbylou

Thank you, so far so good. Dh rang Debtline and they wanted no notice to stop the agreement so he stopped it there and then. Scary but great!
We have been ringing round for quite a bit of the morning and have had some success. Three of mine accepted our new arrangement straight away with about £5 added onto each payment. One did a SOA over the phone and after a bit of banter agreed to it - I even got them to freeze the interest!
Dh had success with one, and two have asked for SOA to be sent back to them so a little delay there. I'm sure they'll all be fine. It feels so great to be in charge of it ourselves now. At least we will get regular statements and can see where we are going. I have asked for updated balances and a few were less than we thought so that's good. When we have our final figure I will make one of those banner things at the bottom with it on and also our DFD.
Feel really empowered today - 2 more to sort out!

abbylou

Morning all! Up and ready early to tackle my last two creditors today. Dh and I had such a good day yesterday. Although nothing has changed really in the amount we owe, we feel so much more in control of our own finances. We've been able to put an extra £60 a month to the debts which was the management fee we were paying Debtline - every little helps! Dh just has an SOA to do for one of his creditors and I have two more to ring. I want to get it out of the way early so I can get on with some work for the rest of the day.
I'm so glad we decided to do this as it feels like we are in control. If we want to ring up and add on a few more pounds to each we can, we can make extra payments whenever funds allow and when we have that extra money available from February/March we can increase all the payments without hassle. We are aiming for 3 years to be debt free. At the moment it wouldn't be that but we hope as we increase our monthly commitment to it we can get to it before Christmas 2016. What a great Christmas present that would be!

abbylou

Well, today was about success and frustration really. Dh was accepted by both of his creditors for the monthly amount he was offering. Barclaycard were really helpful to me and accepted the new monthly payment and allowed me to set up a SO from my account.
The one sticking point we have is a company called dlc. They are a deby collection agency working on behalf of Liverpool Victoria. When I tried ringing them on the phone number on my annual statement is says the only way to contact them is in writing. How annoying is that? Today I have sent them a letter setting out what I want. I have been quite blunt and told them what I want rather than asking them. I have kept a copy of the letter for my file and await a reply. I suppose one awkward creditor out of 10 isn't bad!
Dh and I have also done a new total with all our up to date balance and the debt is looking better. When we started with Debtline 4 years ago it was £30,000 and it is now just over £20,000 so that is encouraging. We have managed to freeze the interest on all but one as well.

david_bedford_2

Yes you can do it yourself and it's pretty easy.

I suggest that you contact the creditors before you default on your payment, and provide them with a SOA (Statement of Affairs).

Request that the interest is frozen some of them won't do it, however offer a reasonable payment plan. i.e. over 4/6 months with a re-assessment at the 4/6 month period.

When contacting them i used the words "valued customer" and always made payments in the past, they seemed to be more understandable that it's a financial blip as they are a business and want you to come back.

i now have manageable repayments with 2 of my 4 creditors, 1 of them is under manager review and awaiting response from the last 1.

Also when they make an offer you set the terms of the repayment. i.e. want 180 back you set the date of when the repayment starts, make token payments between that time to ensure to pay it off and bring the debt down.