full and final settlement offers

ciderbrian

hello everyone, I am currently on a debt management plan paying out £267 to service debts on 3 credits cards and one loan, the original debt total was £20500, I have never missed a payment and have been on the plan for a few years now and the overall debt has been reduced to about£16000, I have received a large PPI claim for £4000 and was hoping to use this to make full and final settlement offers to my creditors, has anyone ever heard of settlements as low as 25%? Any information or advice greatly appreciated!

rachaelpie

Have a look at my earlier thread,.a good link therehttps://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4987945

thewhiteavenger

ciderbrian wrote: »

hello everyone, I am currently on a debt management plan paying out £267 to service debts on 3 credits cards and one loan, the original debt total was £20500, I have never missed a payment and have been on the plan for a few years now and the overall debt has been reduced to about£16000, I have received a large PPI claim for £4000 and was hoping to use this to make full and final settlement offers to my creditors, has anyone ever heard of settlements as low as 25%? Any information or advice greatly appreciated!

Yes, and lower than that!


But possibly not when on a dmp with an end point in view and significant monthly payments. Still it's worth a try with all 4 creditors, and see if anyone takes the bait.


Actually your dmp worries me a bit. Paying 267 per month means your debt should reduce 3k per year. Yours has reduced £4500 in 'a few years' Are you paying a fee-charging provider? Are your creditors still charging interest?

ciderbrian

One of my credit cards has refused to drop the interest but just to lower it, the agreed repayment to Creation Card is £52 a month on a balance of £4100 but they are refusing to lower interest of 47 a month, so effectively I am only paying £5 a month towards my debt. I paid a local company a one off fee of £350, (yes, stupid, I Know), they were very good at setting up the initial plan but he is very difficult to get in contact with and sometimes he doesn't reply to calls or emails, I have £4000 from an annuity payment and want to maximise this against debts, I don't fancy going into retirement years carrying debt. Any other ideas or suggestions. I have been tying to contact him because any full and final settlement letters will look better coming from an official company.


any help greatly appreciated

dancingfairy

National debtline factsheet on full and final settlements here: https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/24%20EW%20Full%20and%20final%20settlement%20offers/Default.aspx
I'm not sure what you mean by it will look better coming from an official company. I'm not sure whether you meant you wanted to go via Payplan or Stepchange or whether you meant you wanted to use someonelse?
You can either write to everyone and state that you have 4,000 and that they will get x percentage of this (according to how much you owe each creditor) (as long as it is in full and final settlement), or you could start with the biggest debts and try and settle as many as you can. Start with one and try and settle, if you can't get a decent offer or they just ignore you then move onto to the next one.
df

dancingfairy

Actually having read this again you have paid someone £350 to sort out your debts and now you can't contact them and you want them to look after £4,000 for you? :eek::eek:
You can get help and advice for free. You've lost that £350 which could have gone towards debts
I don't understand why you feel the offer has to come from an official company either? If you really feel this then please go through a free debt charity but there is no reason why you can't write a few letters yourself.
df

National_Debtline

Thanks to Dancingfairy for posting a link to our fact sheet. It's really very easy to make full and final settlement offers yourself so long as you follow the basic rules which are outlined within our fact sheet. It's always vital to ensure that you negotiate in writing. It's perfectly OK to make offers directly yourself, we've helped thousands and thousands of people do it themselves.

Very best wishes,

David @ National Debtline.