Trust Deed (Scotland) Any advice?

sarah0404

Hi, hope its ok to post this here. Wasn't sure if I should put it in the DFW forum or in this one.

I have been trying to sort out my debts for over a year now. Sold my car, cut up credit cards, I never buy clothes, haven't had a hair cut for 2 years now, haven't been on holiday for 2 years, my mum pays for shoes for the children, and all their clothes are passed on from family members etc. But it doesn't seem to be working I am just never getting out of it. This weekend we realised we had no money left for food this week, and there was no money available for my partners work expenses. (His work expenses are fairly high - he does get most of them paid back, but if he doesn't have the money to pay for them up front then he can't work) So we contacted CCCS. They have recommended that we apply for a Trust Deed. I think its a similar sort of thing to an IVA.

Its kind of a relief TBH, although I feel a bit scummy about having borrowed money and then not paying it all back. I never thought it would come to this. I was always sure that we would be able to work our way to being debt free ourselves.

I'm just looking for advice from anyone who has been through this process. I'm not too sure what to do now. What company do I go with? There seems to be plenty advertised, but I just worry that some of them might be dodgy. Like that Carol Vorderman one for instance.

What is the normal process for this? Do I need pay slips, bank statements, and bills etc to show them? I assume I will lose my bank account - especially since the loan I owe the most money to is with them. I suppose I will need to set up a basic bank account. Or would it be ok for my partner to have his wages paid into someone elses account and then I could use the money to pay all my bills at the post office? Does anyone have any advice for me? Thanks!

philnicandamy

try here...they are a totally free non profit organisation, not being in scotland i'm a little fuzzy about trust deeds but they will offer free advice & support needed

http://www.payplan.com/trust-deeds.php

tigerfeet2006

Hi and welcome.

Unfortunatly we have very little experiance of Trust Deeds and Scottish B/R on these boards but hopefully the good people here will be able to help you.

http://www.debtquestions.co.uk/debt_forum/viewforum.php?f=16&sid=969f08314b15fdfb726a06357d565049

sarah0404

Thanks for the advice. I have checked out the websites you both linked to. It's a shame there doesn't seem to be anyone else with any direct experience of this. I will update this thread with how things go, in case it might help someone else in future.

So.... spoke to someone yesterday evening. Can't remember the name of the company now! They took down all my details from my SOA and debts etc. They worked out that I could afford to pay back £385 a month to my debts. CCCS had originally said £450. They have allowed me £150 a month to pay back to family debts, which will take 13 months to pay off. After that they will add the £150 a month to the Trust Deed. The advisor told me this was a good offer and would likely be accepted without any problems. It pays back something like 40p for every £1 I owe.

So now I have to get all my bank statements, details of income and outgoings, statements from credit cards etc. ready to send in. They will write a proposal and then send it to a solicitor in Glasgow to do all the legal bits. I will have to meet with them and go over the proposal and then sign things. She said it will probably be the middle of August before this happens. After that we have to wait 5 weeks to see if anyone objects to the Trust Deed, so it is all a bit scary.

I need to set up a basic bank account and transfer my income and essential direct debits to them. We are trying Lloyds TSB, as they are the only company we don't seem to have any debts with. I'm going to do that today. The bank account needs to be set up and working before anything can go ahead.

I was also told to cancel my d/d to my credit cards, which is very scary! I just had two bills come in and I feel i should at least put something towards them. The whole process is going to take AT LEAST 7 weeks. I don't want to start getting default notices and debt collection letters. I will try and make the payments on them if I can. Hopefully I will be able to make a few more payments to my loan as well. So far I have been making payments to all my debts - mostly up to date and on time. Its just that I don't have any money left over for food and to live on. I've been borrowing money from family a lot recently. CCCS gave me a budget, which covers things I hadn't before, like pets, dentist, clothes, road tax etc. If I take those amounts out every month then I should be able to afford road tax when the time comes round etc. I'm not really going to be any better off on this trust deed than I am now. There's not going to be piles of spare money sitting around - all spare money is going to pay the debts. But I will be debt free in 3 years, instead of 7. Then I willl NEVER, NEVER, EVER take out credit again!

I will update if I have any more info to add.

philnicandamy

Glad to hear things are moving on...
Please do keep in touch sarah, as we don't really have much experience of trust deeds & scottish BR stuff seeing as most of us are in the UK any information will be useful to any future problems we might be able to help someone with

Phil

cc_free

Hi,
I did the same nearly 3 yrs ago and I used a company KPMG who were fanastic in helping you. When you phone them they are so nice and helpful.

Hope this helps a little.

CCFREE

lowestofthelow

I signed a Trust Deed in January '02, recommended to me by Citizens Advice. They passed me on to a firm of accountants who handled the whole thing for me. Don't feel guilty about not paying your credit cards etc. You've started doing something about it and they'll at least get something at the end of it. It's not an easy thing to go through and it doesn't half teach you to respect the old moolah!! Best of luck. x

cc_free

lowestofthelow wrote: »

I signed a Trust Deed in January '02, recommended to me by Citizens Advice. They passed me on to a firm of accountants who handled the whole thing for me. Don't feel guilty about not paying your credit cards etc. You've started doing something about it and they'll at least get something at the end of it. It's not an easy thing to go through and it doesn't half teach you to respect the old moolah!! Best of luck. x

Coouldnt agree more with your last statement!

CCF :T

sarah0404

Just thought I would update this thread, but don't really have anything to add. I sent back all my statements to the debt company, but I haven't heard anything back from them. Been leaving messages for the advisor but she hasn't been back in contact. Feeling quite impatient. i just want to know what is going on!

Reading through the info again I noticed it said that they will inform your creditors within 48 hours of receiving your signature back that we are going to apply for the trust deed. No wonder I have been having so many phone calls! Two of my partners credit cards are phoning daily. In fact we just got a debt collection letter for one of them. They want 20-odd quid from us. I'm not sure why. The £20 doesn't cover this months monthly payment. It had a late fee of £12, so it can't be that either. And it's certainly no where near the balance owed. Apparently they try to scare you into paying more before the trust deed goes ahead. I decided to pay for caller ID for the next few months, so I can just ignore them.

Actually i'm surprised my bank account is still working. I thought it would probably be frozen by now. I have a loan payment due to come out of there this week, so i'm 100% sure I will hear from them then!

It's all still a bit scary. I'm pregnant at the moment, due in early October, so i'm hoping everything will be sorted out by then.

Will update when i have something more exciting to add.

sarah0404

Saw the solicitor today. Everything is signed and sorted!

We had to go through all our expenditures and show proof of what we were paying. Had to show council tax bills, gas and electric bills etc. We also had to show proof of our home and car insurance and our tenancy agreement. They also wanted our car registration document, although we were told the creditors would have no interest in our car, as it was only worth £2,000.

We had to give all the details of the banks and cc's we owed money to and hand over any cards or cheque books relating to those accounts.

We will be setting up two trust deeds - one in my name and one in my partners name. He will be paying £220 to his and I'll be paying £150 to mine. He had to write a letter stating that our finances were joint and he was giving the £150 on my behalf for my trust deed. (i am a stay at home mum and he works. I have no earnings at all)

We also had to write a short statement about how we got in debt. I just wrote that we'd had low income jobs, and used the credit cards for day to day living expenses. That we'd used they credit cards to get us through a short period of unemployment and that we'd tried debt consolidation several times.

I think that was about it. The notice will go into the Edinburgh Gazette on Tuesday and then we'll have to wait 5 weeks to see if any of the creditors object. So its going to be the end of September before we know or not. There is quite a high chance that the RBS - our main creditor will object. In that case the solicitor would just file for our bankruptcy (although its not called bankruptcy in Scotland). That would work out exactly the same though. We'd still have to pay the £370 for the next 3 years. I notice people here being discharged from bankruptcy within a year or so, or not having to pay anything back. The situation in Scotland must be quite different. (will go and read up on that in a minute)

He said in the next few weeks I am likely to get loads of phone calls from creditors, offering to try and make deals or make me pay. We're to forward on any correspondence to the solicitors, and they will deal with it. I have caller ID on my phone, so I just won't answer if its a number I don't know.

So, thats my experience so far. Hope this is useful to someone else. Will hopefully be updating in 5 weeks time to say that everything has gone through and been accepted!

philnicandamy

really pleased all is going well...thanks a million for the updates as you know not much is known around here about trust deeds so it's been a very interesting read

Phil