Halifax Overdraft collections/recovery, please advise!

Altariel

I have a £1400 overdraft with Halifax that I fell into trouble with when I was made redundant. Collections set up a repayment plan where I could pay £25 per month to reduce the balance, and would not incur fees.
This arrangement has now ended, I am still not able to pay off the outstanding amount in one lump sum so I called them today. The agent in collections told me that they would not make further arrangement plans and they would have to pass my account to recovery if i couldn't pay it at once. He did say that they would hold the account for 30 days if I got in touch with Step Change, but when i was asking him about this I got disconnected.
I am now unable to call them again until this evening so I thought I would arm myself with advice before I call if I can
So, if this account is passed onto recovery, what are the consequences to me? If I contact Step Change would they want to arrange agreements with all of my creditors, or can it be done on a single account? I have credit card, catalogue etc that i am managing perfectly well, just struggling with this 1 account as I can't pay a lump sum. If anyone can offer any advice I would be extremely grateful!

Edit: I probably should have mentioned that I am no longer using this as my current account, I have an alternative account with a different bank which I now use.

Meatloaf1981

If the account is passed to recoveries, it means it usually remains with Hallifax but is now a "closed" account in repayment and they will negotiate repayments with you. Essentially you don't HAVE to go through Stepchange to arrange this and can in fact arrange it all yourself by providing Hallifax with a statement of affairs detailing what you can afford to pay them. If you don't feel able to do that, then a debt charity like Stepchange would be a good port of call to get some advice.

Ultimately an account placed in recoveries can be sold on to a debt collection agent who will usually buy the debt from Hallifax for less than its worth, then continue to make payment arrangements with you for what you can afford, reviewing the amount with you periodically. It is nothing to fear and completely normal when it comes to debt management. You may find your current account with hallifax will be officially defaulted if it hasn't been already and therefore your credit rating will be affected. This is only an issue if you're hoping to take out more credit in future, such as a mortgage.

Link for statement of affairs: http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php

National_Debtline

There’s some really good information from Meatloaf there. Just to add, if you went to Stepchange and started a DMP with them negotiating on your behalf they are likely to want to include all of your debts in the plan. You can just call them or us for some advice anyway though.

As Meatloaf says, you can self-negotiate with Halifax if you prefer, and there are sample letters on our website to help with that.

James
@natdebtline

Altariel

Many thanks for both of your replies, they were really helpful. As it seems that recovery will still allow payment in instalments I think that is the way to go, as I have been coping with that fairly well so far. T seems silly that they can't explain things in such a simple way themselves!