Help & Advise needed ASAP

Katie22313

Thank you all for your help. I spoke to pay plan last night who were a great help. Hope fully I can get somewhere. My predicament now is that I have a car finance companies chasing me for outstanding payments, the car is broken so they won't take it back and I cannot pay what they want.

KLou

I really think Stepchange is the way forward for you as you don't seem to have the greatest handle on your everyday finances and trying to deal with the debt as well will probably be too much to take on. If Stepchange have set you a payment that is too high - tell them you don't feel it's affordable and they will ask you to adjust your financial statement to reflect what is affordable - tell them you spend more on shopping than you thought and increase that area of expenditure. Please be aware that Stepchange are required by the regulator to make sure what you have left after your expenses goes to your creditors. I imagine the situation may have been 'Stepchange want me to pay £200 but then I will have nothing left 'for me', e.g. treat money or savings. THis is not appropriate when you are on debt management and everything you can reasonably afford should go to the creditors. Also, if you are overspending in lots of areas, creditors are less likely to freeze interest and charges on debts. Try Stepchange again and set aside a good hour to talk things through with them.

zenshi

Katie22313 wrote: »

By self managed you do it all yourself? and how is that working for you? How much debt if you don't mind me asking do you owe. How have you worked this out?

Every situation is different.....for me, I'm self employed so not same wage every month. I had debts on cards and two months mortgage arrears. Step change said I didn't have enough spare money to service my debts ( erm, yeah tha why I'm in debt) for them to set up a plan, therefore I had no choice but to go self managed

At the out set I owed circa £27K. My priority was the mortgage, so after I had agreed a payment plan with them, I sent a letter to each credit card company with an I and E stating what I could afford. A couple companies kept refusing, saying they wanted more but there was no more to give. Eventually they all did accept

I get a phone call from them around every six months or so asking can I up my payments. I tell them, no my situation is still the same and that's that for another six months

You do have to be tough and determined to begin with but with the right frame of mind it is achievable

anna_1977

Katie22313 wrote: »

Thank you all for your help. I spoke to pay plan last night who were a great help. Hope fully I can get somewhere. My predicament now is that I have a car finance companies chasing me for outstanding payments, the car is broken so they won't take it back and I cannot pay what they want.

Hi Katie,
I contacted Stepchange about 6 weeks ago as I was also in a rut. I assumed I'd be on a DMP but when we went through the budget they realised I don't have £100 spare a month. I'm currently making token payments of £1 per creditor for the next 12 months and they will review then - my circumstances will change for the better next summer and the plan is for a DMP then.

Make sure you mention the car when you phone one of the debt charities as finance payments on a vehicle are priority debts.
Re it being broken - do you have any warranty/comeback? Was the car purchased on HP or a car loan?

asparagus1968

Katie22313 wrote: »

Thank you all for your help. I spoke to pay plan last night who were a great help. Hope fully I can get somewhere. My predicament now is that I have a car finance companies chasing me for outstanding payments, the car is broken so they won't take it back and I cannot pay what they want.

Do pay plan charge you, or is it a debt charity?

rockm87

Payplan are a free DMP charity.

Katie22313

asparagus1968 wrote: »

Do pay plan charge you, or is it a debt charity?

Pay plan is the same as stepchange