DRO - Car Price Help

fatavril

Hello

I'm drowning in debt at the moment and looking in to doing a Debt Relief Order, as recommended by Step Change on their Debt Remedy tool.

The problem I've got is that my car is coming up on whatcar (using their free car valuation tool) at worth £1320 at trade price.

From what I understand my car has to be worth less than £1000 so does anyone know what I would need to remedy this before applying for a DRO. I know this seems like I obviously need to get a cheaper car but I'm not even sure how to approach that. Can I start the DRO proceedings before I get rid of my "expensive" car? Do I approach a dealer and ask them to buy my car from me so that I can buy a cheaper car? Do I see if I can find a car dealer that will offer me a straight swap for a cheaper car? - I presume that will be classed as dropping assets for less than their value??

I'm new to all this debt relief stuff and struggling to know where to start really

TIA

NWAD_2

Hiya

I took out a DRO last April (nearly finished). I went on Parkers website in order to get my valuation. It gave me the option of different levels of condition of car. As my car was/is in a poor condition my valuation came out under the 1000 threshold with them and I was able to print the information out and send it through to Step Change with other paperwork and the valuation was accepted without me having to prove condition. I think it cost about £3 with a debit card to do.

Hope this helps! Keep us posted how you get on. I know what a difficult time this is for you xx

wba31

Don't pay anything. Go to Parkers and see what the free valuation says. Less than £1k and you're cool. If you have to pay for a valuation because the car is older than 10 years old, then your advisor will ask you what yu value the car to be worth. Check on autotrader at similar cars for sale. Some for £1k or less, you're fine to think yours is worth less as it might well be.
If packers gives a free valuation for more than £1k, get an independent trader or 2 to give you a written valuation confirming value. Do not use we buy any car as they are not acceptable for valuations. You will have to send the valuations to your advisor who will keep them in case the DRO unit ask for them

fatbelly

If it's under 10 years old you must use Parkers.

I just did a comparison on a 7 year old Renault in our family. The values were:

Whatcar £2084
Parkers £1790

I wouldn't be surprised if you were much closer to the 1k limit on Parkers and drop through that barrier in the next few months

NorthFin

A lot depneds on the condition, if it has dents all over it then parkers is not correct.

wba31

NorthFin wrote: »

A lot depneds on the condition, if it has dents all over it then parkers is not correct.

But it is what the insolvency service check.

If it comes in under £1k then no problem.

If it comes in over £1k and is covered in dents, that's where the obtaining of valuations comes in.

but what if the car is repaired during the moratorium? its now worth over £1k?

fatbelly

I think I'll start carrying a lump hammer in my work bag.

If the valuation comes in at just over 1k, I'll nip out to the car park and lower the value for them.