Full and Final Settlement Letter

fatbelly

I saw the comments earlier on but didn't have time to post.

I'm not sure the debt industry work on fixed percentages. I remember someone quoting 6 - 16% but that was some time ago. If anyone has current figures, please post them as it would be helpful.

We do see low settlement offers, usually on mortgage shortfall debts so I see nothing odd about a 15% deal.

I think Sourcrates may have been wondering if this was a statute barred debt. It sounds that it isn't.

Provided their letter is unambiguous, and it is, though still not very well worded, I'd say go for it.

sourcrates

fatbelly wrote: »

I think Sourcrates may have been wondering if this was a statute barred debt. It sounds that it isn't.

Provided their letter is unambiguous, and it is, though still not very well worded, I'd say go for it.

Hi,

Yes, either statute barred, or no paperwork, however as its a mortgage shortfall, it makes sense now.

The person who wrote that letter needs to go back to school, in my opinion, but from what you've said, I would go ahead and do it, make sure you keep that letter in a safe place.

National_Debtline

I have looked at the letter that Enact have sent you and I would say it is not good enough. It seems to allow Enact the option pursue the remaining balance....I would suggest you try and pin them down to something more detailed before sending any money. Ask them to confirm in writing that they will mark all liable parties credit file with a zero balance and that neither they nor any other third party company will try and pursue anyone named on this debt for the remaining balance. If they won't do this then I would be extremely cautious about sending any money.

From the wording they have used I don't think the debt would classed as settled as they are "reserving the right to pursue any other parties for the remaining balance". I hope you can get this sorted.


Laura
@natdebtline

strawberryblonde

Thanks Laura. My husband has spoken to them again today and they have said they will issue a letter that we want so will wait and see.
We have managed to settle a debt of £5672 for £941-(16.5%) with Marks and Spencer bank so are delighted about that.
Still waiting to hear from our other creditors .

strawberryblonde

I have this morning received another letter from Enact saying

We write to confirm that upon receipt and clearance of your payment in the sum of xxx your liability for this debt will be fully cleared and our file closed.
Our client will not pass on your details to any other agent or thrid party to recover the remaining balance.
Our client reserves the right to pursue any other parties such as guarantors, if applicable, for repayment of any remaining balance.

If anyone is able to say whether they agree with me that we can go ahead and settle on this I would be very grateful.

sourcrates

strawberryblonde wrote: »

I have this morning received another letter from Enact saying

If anyone is able to say whether they agree with me that we can go ahead and settle on this I would be very grateful.

As long as you were the only names debtors, Ie, there was no guarantor, then I would say that was fairly clear cut.

strawberryblonde

Yes-we have never had guarantors. So happy about this I can't begin to tell you. Thank-you for your help sourcrates

Movingon5464

Hi, I am just about to send off CCA requests to my creditors in preparation for hopefully being in a position to start negotiating full and final settlements soon. You seem to have done very well in getting them to accept quite low percentages and i just wanted to enquire what your method was. Did you send the standard template letter first or go straight in with your explanation of the circumstances ? And did they accept your first offer ?

strawberryblonde

Hi Movingon 564
I have just posted in the Debt Free Wanabe section of the forum with details of our settlement figures.
Only 2 of our debts were able to be CCA'd and both were able to provide copies of our agreements so were not of any advantage.
I then used the National Debtline letter that I slightly tweaked. I was advised on here not to include too much extra information in the first letter as that wouldn't leave anything to negotiate further with.

I worded the letter like this;

We write with reference to the money which you are claiming on the above account.
We can confirm that we are unable to pay the money which we owe in full as our debts total £xxxx and would take 43 ½ years to repay. However, we can raise £xxx from a relative and we want to offer this as an ex-gratia payment in full and final settlement of the account. This amount represents approximately 7 ½ years of payments. This offer is made on the clear understanding that, if accepted, neither you nor any associate company will take any other action to enforce or pursue this debt in any way whatsoever and that we will be released from any liability.
We also request that, if accepted, you make an entry on our credit reference agency files relating to the above account as having been paid and the account closed.
Payment can be made within 28 days of receiving your written agreement of this offer and method of payment.

I also included a table showing the pro rata offers made to each of our other creditors.

We were asked to provide further information by all of the creditors and at this point we mentioned that we were seriously considering bankruptcy if they wouldn't accept our offers. Our levels of debt were very high and they had all defaulted so this helped I think.

Good luck with your negotiations and if I can help any further happy to do so

Movingon5464

Thank you so much for sharing this information. You must be delighted to have negotiated so well. Hopefully myself and others on here can achieve similar results and we can all go into the new year with the weight of these DMP's off our shoulders.