DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 11

January2015

Billy12345 wrote: »

Hope someone can help. I took out a mortgage in december last year. All going fine until june this year when i realised my credit cards and loans were getting too much, so took out a dmp for these debts and all going well. My question is that can halifax who my mortgage is with enforce a sale of my property as i am in a dmp. States in their t&cs that if i enter into a voluntary agreement the mortgage becomes immediately repayable. If thats not the case my mortgage is on a two year fixed rate which, when it expires, will they do another credit check, as if they do ill fail so what happens to the mortgage then. Stepchange said to contact halifax but i dont want them to note my dmp and enforce a sale if they can. HELP

The T&C's of our mortgage state:

Our right to require early repayment

10 We may write to you (or your personal
representatives) to require immediate
repayment of all or part of the Loan,
with interest and charges, if:

IV Bankruptcy proceedings are
commenced against you or, with
a joint Loan, either of you or you
enter into any arrangement with
your creditors;

In our case we have never told the mortgage company about our DMP. We have never missed a mortgage payment and things have ticked along nicely since we started our DMP. Our mortgage offer ended several years ago and we were automatically moved to track the base rate so we are currently paying a rate of 1.25% - which is great for us.

At the end of your fixed rate deal you will simply move onto your lender's standard variable rate and start paying that. They will not need to carry out a further credit check.

If I were you I would just let the DMP continue and keep paying the mortgage.

CP2016

I have a Helifax mortgage and I didn't tell them about my DMP (actually if the different parts of the group talk to each other they'll already know it) & I've just carried on with the mortgage payments every month, Never had any problems with them, when my fixed rate deal ended I just got put onto their SVR which (for me at the time) was lower than the fixed rate, no credit check needed.

Billy12345

Thanks for the quick replies. I enquired through my mortgage broker to see if i could sell my home, buy a cheaper one and port the mortgage over (cheaper as i would not have a help to buy 20% to pay). The broker asked the question and halifax said no they would not port over so they must know about the dmp. This was very recent and i have not heard anything from them. If they do try to enforce a sale ill go to the CAB.

Lyntonsbird

Advice please. I started my DMP in September and got a letter from SC saying BOS had refused the offer of payment. Recently I sent a letter of complaint and they said they had no record. They have now been sent it again by step change. My question is I keep getting charges for late payment (which are not late just small) and now a default fee can I ask for them to be refunded. I still haven't got the interest frozen and the rest of my debtors have agreed and frozen. What else can I do ? I've seen posts talking about section 78 I took out the card in 1997 is it worth trying
Thank you all for the support it is really go to be able to ask for advice ����

sourcrates

Lyntonsbird wrote: »

Advice please. I started my DMP in September and got a letter from SC saying BOS had refused the offer of payment. Recently I sent a letter of complaint and they said they had no record. They have now been sent it again by step change. My question is I keep getting charges for late payment (which are not late just small) and now a default fee can I ask for them to be refunded. I still haven't got the interest frozen and the rest of my debtors have agreed and frozen. What else can I do ? I've seen posts talking about section 78 I took out the card in 1997 is it worth trying
Thank you all for the support it is really go to be able to ask for advice ����

Hi,

Yes a CCA request is an excellent idea.

It would suprise me if BOS had your agreement from 1997.

They couldn't provide mine from 2008 !!!

heavenlyharry01

With lots of talk about self management im wondering if we took a plan out with StepChange too quickly.
We are only 1 month in but haven't built up any savings.
In the near future I will be receiving some money which would enable us to request full and final settlement figures. But being with StepChange could hinder this.....as sourcrates told me ideally f&f settlements are easier to achieve once the accounts have been defaulted.
What should I do??
Leave StepChange now?
Write to the creditors and tell them we are going self managed and use the nedcab website?

Any advice always gratefully received as this is way above my head x

racht

CP2016 wrote: »

Hi

I was an active member here a few years ago - in 2011 when my lightbulb was flickering because it looked as if I'd be made redundant and following a break up I was on my own with a load of debt a lot of which I paid off during 2011 but when I was made redundant I couldn't continue to pay my debts so I had my LBM in December 2011 and started my DMP with CCCS (now StepChange) with the first payment going out in February 2012. I paid in full in December then tokens in January. During all this I managed to get a new job - at half the pay I previously earned so I needed to buy some time to think about what I needed to do - there was more than enough equity in my house to clear debts if I sold up or I could get back into the same career area I was in before and go back to paying in full, although living in a rural area meant that wouldn't be easy - when I was reading old posts on this thread someone mentioned that well paid jobs in rural areas are like rocking horse poo - they are so right! I started my DMP with 35k debt and a DFD of 2030 and I felt that wasn't sustainable. Fast forward almost 5 years and I've got the debt down to 25k and with a couple of promotions I've managed to get the DFD day down to mid 2020. Because I started with such low payments I got defaulted by all but one of my creditors within 12 months and all except the same one stopped charges straight away. This one (Next) continued to apply charges (seemingly intermittently) and didn't default me until September this year. I'll be writing to them about both those things - I want the default backdated at least a year which will mean that when the debts are finally paid (on the current timetable) I'll have a clear slate - not that I intend to do anything more than use the DMP amount to overpay my mortgage but it will be good to have it all out of the way. The Next thing is my own fault, I didn't manage my DMP - just let it run and I didn't check or anything, it was only the recent promotion and much reduced DFD that gave me a nudge to my second LBM and now I feel in a much better space to actually face this and manage it. I've even been and looked at my credit record ... I always did like red. :rotfl:

Based on my experience I would say
1) Don't use redundancy pay to make your regular payments if you think that you're going to need a DMP, schoolboy error from me there - it was a ready made emergency fund.
2) Give yourself some breathing space to get that emergency fund saved up and also to give your creditors a jolt - 4 of my debts were defaulted within 6 months.
3) Make sure your budget has some wiggle room in it. I cut mine to the bone because I was worried the creditors wouldn't accept such low payments and the first 18 months were utterly miserable - I had to use loads of my leave just before pay days just because I didn't have petrol money and I didn't heat the house properly either because I couldn't afford to pay for heating oil. Having said that a couple of smallish pay rises were enough to give me the wiggle room I didn't have at the start even so, I was still flying by the seat of my pants until I got a decent promotion earlier this year - finally, I got some money to save for an emergency fund and since my car is now 11 years old with 123k miles on the clock I probably will need that between now and the end of the DMP. Although, to be fair to my little car it's been fantastic (busy touching wood now).
4) Try not to worry too much, easier said than done I know but worrying doesn't actually achieve anything, apart from some wobbles at the start I've managed to follow my own advice.

I'm amazed to see you all busily going self managed - I didn't have the mental strength to do that starting out and there's no need for me to do it now with defaults across the board and no interest being charged. Maybe when the defaults are beginning to drop off I'll think about F&Fs but for now I'm ok just to keep on paying. In the mean time I'll probably lurk more than I post but thanks to all you regular posters - I've read thread 11 over the last week and it contained the answers for the questions I had about Next so I don't even need to pester you all with anything.

I have had issues with Next reinstating my account and adding interest then starting DMP again and refunding interest and then the next statement they would add interest yet again (for about 6 months) Anyway I wrote an official letter of complaint and also stated that my account should have been defaulted 2 years ago like my other creditors and they agreed to back date it- it finally showed up this month on my credit reports!
This has took a while to get set up though as I complained in May- I had to let my account go into arrears for them to be able to set up the new payment plan, they actually told me not to make any payments until the plan was up and running!! As Stepchange wouldn't let me miss Nexts payment I have had to go self managed- which I was planning to do anyway.

I would write and complain to them- they replied really fast and appointed me my own advisor to handle everything in regards to my account. It was good to have 1 person to contact throughout.

sourcrates

heavenlyharry01 wrote: »

With lots of talk about self management im wondering if we took a plan out with StepChange too quickly.
We are only 1 month in but haven't built up any savings.
In the near future I will be receiving some money which would enable us to request full and final settlement figures. But being with StepChange could hinder this.....as sourcrates told me ideally f&f settlements are easier to achieve once the accounts have been defaulted.
What should I do??
Leave StepChange now?
Write to the creditors and tell them we are going self managed and use the nedcab website?

Any advice always gratefully received as this is way above my head x

It's always a difficult one that Harry.

I would say, if you know your going to receive x amount of money on such an such a date, to use that money for the very best outcome, your debts need to be defaulted and sold on.

Only then will you get the best discounts, I think it's a decision you'll need to make yourself.

heavenlyharry01

sourcrates wrote: »

It's always a difficult one that Harry.

I would say, if you know your going to receive x amount of money on such an such a date, to use that money for the very best outcome, your debts need to be defaulted and sold on.

Only then will you get the best discounts, I think it's a decision you'll need to make yourself.

Arghhhhhhhh!!
I don't know!
I supppose I can just put the money in another savings account once I have it. Then go self managed.
I would think I would have it in around 6 months time

heavenlyharry01

sourcrates wrote: »

It's always a difficult one that Harry.

I would say, if you know your going to receive x amount of money on such an such a date, to use that money for the very best outcome, your debts need to be defaulted and sold on.

Only then will you get the best discounts, I think it's a decision you'll need to make yourself.

What I didn't understand is the selling of debts onto collection companies. Surely they get sold cheaply?? So why don't creditors accept full and final settlements easier before they get sold on??