DMP for me affecting joint accounts

daydream_believer_2

Having come clean to OH regarding our situation ( caused by me), we have spent the last 10 days trying to work out the best solution with the minimum of long term damage.

Our debt is spread over 5 cards (2 mine, and 3 his), and 2 overdrafts on joint accounts.
However, we can just about cover the payments on his cards, if I could do payments arrangements on mine with a DMP.

My biggest debt is with Nationwide credit card. We also have a joint account with them, with an overdraft that we may be able to get back in the black.

My question is, if we go down the route of me just having a DMP, can Nationwide take money from a joint account to help payments? Or can we keep a small ammount in this account to help pay his cards, bills etc.

Also, me having a DMP will black list my credit rating, so will this result in Natwest asking for repayment of our overdraft (which we can't do)

Any advice appreciated!

Puzzcat

I am making the assumption that you were trying to exclude your husbands debts from the dmp to protect his credit rating? I think you will find that if you have accounts in joint names his will be affected by association. Also when doing a dmp all debts have to be included so if the bank account overdraft is in joint names you would be expected to include it so as its fair to all creditors. Obviously if you are going self managed and not through a free provider such as stepchange or payplan it may be different.
My debts were all in my name apart from the joint account overdraft which we paid off and closed prior to entering the dmp.
And yes they would have the right to offset from any account in your name to pay the debt.

Bettingmad

Firstly there does not have to be a joint DMP as they can be set up singularly. If you want to preserve your OH's credit rating then you have to revert your joint accounts in single account. You may experience difficulties as they may not agree if there are overdrafts on them.

The problem with the above is even if you convert one account to single in your name and disassociate yourself from OH on the credit file they can still offset the credit card debt against your account.

The best route has to be you pay off one OD and close the account down. Convert the other joint account into single for your OH and for you to open a basic account elsewhere as you really shouldn't hold a bank account in the same place as a debt if you are going onto a DMP.

It can be doable albeit quite complicated to arrange.

TBH in the circumstances you describe why do you not enter a joint DMP? It would be helpful if you posted an SOA and peeps may be able to give you far better advice.

loveka

As I have discovered to my cost, it is impossible to financially disassociate by simply closing joint bank accounts. If you have a mortgage together this is financial association for example.

I was advised that the only thing to do is to write to the credit reference agencies and say we had split up!

I haven't,t been in debt since I was a student but my credit file is trashed because of my partners debt, despite closing our joint account. The cost of my partners secret debt will go on for many years after we have paid it off. For example, we will be unable to remortgage to get better rates because of it. So we will have to pay more for our mortgage in the long run.

So if you both have debts it is probably better to have a joint DMP, as you won't be able to preserve one credit rating.

Bettingmad

Good point about the mortgage, I was lucky as we had no joint debts or mortgage, the only joint we had was overdrafts. So my circumstances were easier to circumvent.