DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 11

jubilee14

Hi all dont get on as often as i would like but great to see such brilliant progress. Cant believe you are just about there Growurown. i still have a while to go and after an expensive October was pretty down to the wire till pay day this month. which is the first time in a long time. i think its because life has taken over a bit and i've not been budgeting as well as i could. but back on track. not prepared as much as i should be for Christmas but will plan to improve my budgeting again. sometimes after a while we may not slip into our old ways but we can certainly ease up on the manic budget enthusiasm that takes hold in the early days especially if as like many of us we are in it for the long haul.

have a good weekend all xx

2spicy

Not sure if Mr Spicy has just done a very silly thing, but he has just agreed to Solar Panels to be installed on the house & signed a finance agreement for £9000 over 10 years.

However, working the figures based on our energy useage over the last 2 years averages, and we should profit to the tune of aprox £500 per year after the finance repayments have been made.

On the brighter side however, this means we can plough the profits into paying off the finance early (estimate full repayment within 6 years) and then, start to bank the savings to cover the endowment part of our Mortgage ( £80k shortfall )

Im a little bit scared at the moment having spent the last 6 years paying off financial indiscretions to be racking up another £9k !!

Growurown

jubilee14 wrote: »

Hi all dont get on as often as i would like but great to see such brilliant progress. Cant believe you are just about there Growurown. i still have a while to go and after an expensive October was pretty down to the wire till pay day this month. which is the first time in a long time. i think its because life has taken over a bit and i've not been budgeting as well as i could. but back on track. not prepared as much as i should be for Christmas but will plan to improve my budgeting again. sometimes after a while we may not slip into our old ways but we can certainly ease up on the manic budget enthusiasm that takes hold in the early days especially if as like many of us we are in it for the long haul.

have a good weekend all xx

Thanks, yes it's taken over four years, our debt was around £48,000 which included HP on the car bought in 2007 which got written off by an idiot last April:( OH still has some outstanding debts on one credit card but he also opened an account with JD Williams which has racked up a tidy amount. I'm hoping that after our last payment we can use the money to get those paid off more quickly now. However I will be debt free and that's what matters!:D

There's been a few stressful moments especially when we've had car problems. The emergency fund was never big enough to cover the cost so we had to make reduced payments a couple of times.

Keep at it Jubilee14 you are going through a tough time atm but it will get better. Christmas is always a difficult time isn't it?

So we do have a bit more work to do, and OH always wants new toys but we are getting there.

Sazzie23

2spicy wrote: »

Not sure if Mr Spicy has just done a very silly thing, but he has just agreed to Solar Panels to be installed on the house & signed a finance agreement for £9000 over 10 years.

However, working the figures based on our energy useage over the last 2 years averages, and we should profit to the tune of aprox £500 per year after the finance repayments have been made.

On the brighter side however, this means we can plough the profits into paying off the finance early (estimate full repayment within 6 years) and then, start to bank the savings to cover the endowment part of our Mortgage ( £80k shortfall )

Im a little bit scared at the moment having spent the last 6 years paying off financial indiscretions to be racking up another £9k !!

Not going to pretend I know anything about the financial sense or otherwise of going into these deals but a friend who lives locally to me has half the fuel bills I do in a similar size house. Admitted his place is a lot newer than mine and probably has better insulation but he has hot water on tap from the solar panels so its certainly something I've considered. Think there is a solar panel thread somewhere if you wanted to check it out, there is probably a back out clause for the next few days if you decided you weren't happy.

blisteringblue

Are we sure its not April 1st rather than Nov 1st ??

Just logged into my updated Noddle Credit Report and there in big red letters under "Other Accounts" is PRA Group and the magic words "DEFAULT" !!

Woo Hoo :money:

Started the Barclaycard process in April when they wanted to charge me over £100 a month in interest. Resulted in going to a self managed DMP for those new to forum and paying them a token payment which I am still paying. Finally get the default but it got me to zero interest right away back in April.

It really is the only way to play hardball with these companies but you have to leave your safety blanket of Stepchange or Payplan.

Hopefully the other accounts I did the same with will follow soon with the promised defaults, but got there in the end.

Will wait until after Xmas and get back to the normal payments with them again and get this thing paid off.

:D

zenshi

blisteringblue wrote: »

Are we sure its not April 1st rather than Nov 1st ??

Just logged into my updated Noddle Credit Report and there in big red letters under "Other Accounts" is PRA Group and the magic words "DEFAULT" !!

Woo Hoo :money:

Started the Barclaycard process in April when they wanted to charge me over £100 a month in interest. Resulted in going to a self managed DMP for those new to forum and paying them a token payment which I am still paying. Finally get the default but it got me to zero interest right away back in April.

It really is the only way to play hardball with these companies but you have to leave your safety blanket of Stepchange or Payplan.

Hopefully the other accounts I did the same with will follow soon with the promised defaults, but got there in the end.

Will wait until after Xmas and get back to the normal payments with them again and get this thing paid off.

:D

I have been paying token payment via self managed plan to said people since summer 2013. Interest was stopped straight away but they refuse to default me

blisteringblue

zenshi wrote: »

I have been paying token payment via self managed plan to said people since summer 2013. Interest was stopped straight away but they refuse to default me

Wow, that is a long time. There were a large number of us that got told the debt was transferring to PRA Group in June and even that took 3 months to happen. The debt mysteriously disappeared off Noddle in Sept and this is the first month it is back on under "other accounts" but it shows as defaulted. I would chase yours via the FCA, I think there is thread somewhere about success with Barclaycard via this method.

I guess I'm quite lucky then? We've a 2nd BC that was also promised to be moving to PRA but not even had any sort of notification about that one.

BC are such an bizarre credit card company?

zenshi

I will def look into it. If I remember rightly, they have sold CC debt. On noddle, my bcard is showing as up to date but the figure I owe is showing under the DC as a defaulted bank account!

I have questioned this with noddle and they say there's nothing wrong. I've been too busy to chase up but will get on it again

stormpassing

Morning all,

Does anyone have any DMP experience with Halifax overdraft? DH has a £1000 OD with Halifax. It was almost at the limit when he entered the DMP and was pushed over this by charges added. Halifax agreed to increase OD limit to £1030 to cover this but have since reduced this to £1010. DMP agreement is that they receive £16 per month towards paying off the OD. DH received a letter saying that they accept the payment but advised him to make sure there was enough money in the account to cover the charges. I don't think there will be as he pays £16 per month and the overdraft fees are £1 per day. That said I am not sure if them increasing the overdraft cancelled out the fees. They are really confusing us.

Sorry this feels like I'm ranting. Any ideas anyone?

Thanks in advance,
SP x

January2015

stormpassing wrote: »

Morning all,

Does anyone have any DMP experience with Halifax overdraft? DH has a £1000 OD with Halifax. It was almost at the limit when he entered the DMP and was pushed over this by charges added. Halifax agreed to increase OD limit to £1030 to cover this but have since reduced this to £1010. DMP agreement is that they receive £16 per month towards paying off the OD. DH received a letter saying that they accept the payment but advised him to make sure there was enough money in the account to cover the charges. I don't think there will be as he pays £16 per month and the overdraft fees are £1 per day. That said I am not sure if them increasing the overdraft cancelled out the fees. They are really confusing us.

Sorry this feels like I'm ranting. Any ideas anyone?

Thanks in advance,
SP x

Go straight back to Halifax and quote Section 224 of The Lending Code. Halifax subscribe to The Lending Code, which means they agree to abide by it. Section 224 states:

• Subscribers should consider reducing or stopping interest and charges when a customer evidences that they are in financial difficulties. Such reduction/suspension decision should be based upon an income and expenditure statement indicating that they are unable to make repayments sufficient to meet contractual terms. Where a customer is able to make only token payments, their debt should not increase as a result of interest and charges levied. The assessment should reflect the customer’s lack of ability to pay rather than the stage an account has reached in the arrears cycle or whether they are using free sources of debt advice. Where a firm declines to allow concessions, they should be prepared to explain why to the customer or their adviser if requested to do so.

[FONT=&quot]The Lending Code states a token payment is "An offer of payment of a small amount, e.g. £1, made by a customer who has no surplus income available for their ‘non-priority’ creditors and whose circumstances have a realistic prospect of improving so that they will be able to resume full or increased payments".

[/FONT]Halifax have accepted your DMP, and hence your financial situation. They obviously realise your £16 payment is all you can afford. They should not be increasing your debt with fees and charges. We had to go back and fight our case with Halifax. They immediately stopped fees and charges on our overdraft (which was almost just over £2k at start of DMP). We did put our challenge in writing and it took a few weeks, but once sorted they reversed all the charges from the start of the DMP.

Good luck, stand your ground, threaten to complain to ombudsman,....and keep us updated:beer: