Struggling with debt? Ask a debt adviser a question

StepChange_Kirsty

Hi Joey,

Thanks for your post and welcome to the forum.

When a default is entered on your credit file, the creditor is only allowed to register this once even if it’s passed onto a debt collection agency. Given that the debt originally defaulted in 2012, the default should be coming off your credit file within the next year. There is some useful information about default notices which you can find on our website here.

If you’ve not made any payment or acknowledged this debt in six years, then the debt may be statute barred. Whilst the debt is not written off and the creditor can still attempt to collect the debt, under The Limitations Act 1980 the creditor cannot take legal action against you. If they did you would be able to defend the claim on the grounds that it is statute barred. You can learn more about statute barred debt here.

Alternatively you can try to contact Opus to find out if they’re still looking after the debt or if it’s been passed onto another company in order to make an arrangement to pay. If this is not your only debt and you need advice about the best way to deal with this and other debts you can contact us at StepChange for free and impartial debt advice. Our online Debt Remedy tool will guide you through the process of putting a budget together and will then give you advice about the best way of dealing with your debts.

I hope this helps.

Kirsty

Joey91p wrote: »

Hello,

I have checked my credit report and have a recurring default for a debt back in 2012 originally through Mini Credit for £200. It then got passed through to Opos in 2012 with an escalated amount of £1800. At this point I buried my head in the sand as there was no way I could afford to pay this back.

Is there anything I can do or anyone I can contact? I need to get my credit back on track and this is a dark cloud over my report.

Any help will be appreciated, thank you.

StepChange_Rachael

Hi

Thanks for posting.

I’m sorry to hear your Granddaughter is struggling with this debt, there's certainly a way forward for her but I would advise that she speaks with a free debt advice organisation. There are many options available for people struggling to meet their minimum payments so it's important she gets the right advice for her.

You can get an idea of the types of debt solutions available by following this link. Also by Following this link you can access the contact details for StepChange for impartial debt advice.

She can ask the creditor to put the account on hold for 30 days while she's looking for help and advice. This should give her some breathing space from the creditors for now while she decides on a more long term plan.

Take Care
Rachael

olliebears wrote: »

Hi, my Granddaughter has gotten herself in credit card debt to a total of £4k She started missing the minimum payments and it is now £7k She spoke to the company to try and come to some arrangement and was told they will keep applying maximum interest until it is paid which will be never at the current rate. She is a single mother with three girls of 1 3 and 6 and struggling to make ends meet. the charged interest monthly is more than she can pay monthly and she is becoming more desperate mentally.


Any options? Scots law would apply. I worry for her mental state and obviously her children. I tried to talk to the company but they said sorry it is her debt and she knows the position!

StepChange_Rachael

Hi

Thanks for getting back in contact.

I’ve read the previous message and Kirsty’s reply to catch up.

From what you’ve mentioned I do think it’s worth speaking with your DMP company first. If the payments to your mortgage are unaffordable I’d always suggest trying to reduce other costs first.

By reducing the cost of your DMP or finding an alternative solution it may make the mortgage payments more affordable. However, without knowing your full financial situation it’d be hard to say for certain. As Kirsty mentioned you can also contact our Financial Solutions team at StepChange to discuss your mortgage options.

Thanks
Rachael

COYIhammer wrote: »

Thank you for replying. It is the mortgage which has become unmanageable. We took it when we had some money behind us, my wife's work was good and we had supportive and generous parents. Unfortunately they have all passed on and my wife's work has all but dried up. All I want to do is spread the remaining mortgage (£53000) over ten years and not three and even though I told Santander from the start I had a DMP it took them two weeks of being passed around their departments to say they couldn't extend the terms because of it.

COYIhammer

If I stopped my DMP payments completely(hypothetically of course) it wouldn't make much difference compared to my mortgage. That's why I need to extend the term but nobody seems to want to help.

StepChange_Rachael

Thanks for replying.

In that case I’d suggest speaking with our Financial Solutions team. They’ll be able to discuss mortgage options with you further. Here's the link.

Take care,
Rachael

COYIhammer wrote: »

If I stopped my DMP payments completely(hypothetically of course) it wouldn't make much difference compared to my mortgage. That's why I need to extend the term but nobody seems to want to help.

alitlebitbrit

Hello,

I am a Canadian pensioner married to a British man. My Leave to Remain is dependent on our relationship. Since his verbal abuse has recently turned to physical violence, I left him. So now I must return to Canada...which breaks my heart.

I would appreciate suggestions with regard to my financial situation.

My financial obligations:
Credit card: £2,250 (minimum monthly payment, mostly interest of course, approx. £60)
Local council: £945 - an interest-free loan to pay first month's rent and deposit on studio flat to help me escape the violence. (monthly payment £25)
Electrics supplier: £395. (monthly payment £50) I left my husband once before and rented a studio flat. It had just been refurbished, splitting a former shop into two flats. The other flat got a new meter. My flat got the old meter meant for a night storage heater which the flat did not have. For the 8 months I was there, I begged for a bill and got none. I paid £25 a month and when I left I was presented with a bill for £945. Both the supplier and the landlord agreed that it was the wrong meter and not reliable but no-one took responsibility so I was left with the bill. (I have paid £555 so far plus the £200 I had already paid...for a tiny studio flat with two panel heaters...turned on for two months... and three light bulbs, a microwave oven and a computer). Incidentally, the meter was replaced for the next tenant.
Mobile phone: three months left to the contract: (monthly payment £50)
My rent and council tax are paid up to date. I am not in arrears on any bills.
My tenancy agreement has 4 more months to go. (£395 x 4)

I maxed out my credit card to purchase the cheapest flight back to Canada that I could find. I will stay with family for a few months 'til I can afford to pay rent and buy a bit of furniture etc. I have nothing but what I can get into a suitcase.

I will not be able to pay the £185 a month in payments when I leave. If I am held responsible for the 4 months left on the flat, I will be in worse trouble.

I want to meet my financial obligations but am overwhelmed as to what to do. If you can give me any advice, I'd be very grateful. I am frighteningly near to emotional collapse and can't get my head /round what to do.

Thanks kindly

Vodafone

jaydow72 wrote: »

HI, My husband took out a phone contract for his 22 year old daughter under the proviso that after 2 months she would take over the contract and the payments. She did this (Vodaphone have confirmed that a phone call instigated this change of contract name) but then proceeded to default on the payments. We have now received a letter from a collection agency for £750. Vodaphone have tried to trace the call that was made to them by the daughter to see what was agreed with regards to changing the payments as well as the name on the contract - but they can't find it. Can you advise what they need to prove to make this debt legally land with my husband? We are now caught between Vodaphone and the collection agency with no-one seemingly willing to provide any proof that this debt is ours. My husband is estranged form his daughter so we cannot get anything off her. Many thanks

Hi jaydow72,

It's a shame to hear about your husband's experience.

If he'd like me to take a look at the account to see what's happened, please ask him to email me via the form here.

To access the form, he'll need to enter the code WRT135.

As well as stating his query in the question box, he'll also need quote "MSE Forum".

Once sent, he'll receive an automated reply with a reference number. Post it on here and I'll check that I've received it.

Kind regards,

Lee

Vodafone Social Media

Former_StepChange_Linsi

Hello,

Thanks for your post and welcome to the forum.

I’m very sorry to hear about what’s happened. It must have taken a lot of courage to leave your husband. If you need any additional support you can contact organisations such as National Domestic Violence Helpline and Rights of Women.

We can only give advice and offer debt solutions to clients living in the UK in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. As you’ll be moving back to Canada I’d recommend seeking long term advice from a Canadian advice organisation.

If you do need any emergency advice whilst you’re still in the UK you can call our Helpline or visit our website for more information. We may be a bit limited on the solutions we can recommend but we can certainly give you some guidance until you move.

I hope this helps.

Linsi

alitlebitbrit wrote: »

Hello,

I am a Canadian pensioner married to a British man. My Leave to Remain is dependent on our relationship. Since his verbal abuse has recently turned to physical violence, I left him. So now I must return to Canada...which breaks my heart.

I would appreciate suggestions with regard to my financial situation.

My financial obligations:
Credit card: £2,250 (minimum monthly payment, mostly interest of course, approx. £60)
Local council: £945 - an interest-free loan to pay first month's rent and deposit on studio flat to help me escape the violence. (monthly payment £25)
Electrics supplier: £395. (monthly payment £50) I left my husband once before and rented a studio flat. It had just been refurbished, splitting a former shop into two flats. The other flat got a new meter. My flat got the old meter meant for a night storage heater which the flat did not have. For the 8 months I was there, I begged for a bill and got none. I paid £25 a month and when I left I was presented with a bill for £945. Both the supplier and the landlord agreed that it was the wrong meter and not reliable but no-one took responsibility so I was left with the bill. (I have paid £555 so far plus the £200 I had already paid...for a tiny studio flat with two panel heaters...turned on for two months... and three light bulbs, a microwave oven and a computer). Incidentally, the meter was replaced for the next tenant.
Mobile phone: three months left to the contract: (monthly payment £50)
My rent and council tax are paid up to date. I am not in arrears on any bills.
My tenancy agreement has 4 more months to go. (£395 x 4)

I maxed out my credit card to purchase the cheapest flight back to Canada that I could find. I will stay with family for a few months 'til I can afford to pay rent and buy a bit of furniture etc. I have nothing but what I can get into a suitcase.

I will not be able to pay the £185 a month in payments when I leave. If I am held responsible for the 4 months left on the flat, I will be in worse trouble.

I want to meet my financial obligations but am overwhelmed as to what to do. If you can give me any advice, I'd be very grateful. I am frighteningly near to emotional collapse and can't get my head /round what to do.

Thanks kindly

cosmicherb

Hi,
Apologies, this is a long story, but I am in a bit of a mess, and I need to get it out.

I'm a UK based, mid-management type who works in construction (office-based). I've been working on a freelance/contract basis with my own limited company for the last 5 years now. I changed from a permanent role to go into a job in the oil and gas sector, which in 2013 was booming. Day rates were good; very good. I worked in Scotland, away from home in Yorkshire, but had plenty of money and lived a good lifestyle with nice holidays, cars, etc. We could expense anything and ate out in nice places on a weekly basis. In mid-2014 the oil price started dropping like a stone. This wasn't a massive issue for me as the project I was working on was already well under way and it would have cost more to pull it. Some companies dropped their day rates, but ours didn't. All that happened was the free-and-easy days of expenses were over, but we kept working and the project's physical phase ended in mid-2015.

I worked in London for the last 6 months of the project, tying up final accounts and paperwork. I was reimbursed for hotel, travel and reasonable food bills. It was then that I made a big mistake, which I have regretted ever since. I left the job, unsure of how much longer it would last and not given any assurances, to take what I thought would be a nice number near home working for a small company set up by friends, even if the rate was a lot lower (but no travelling costs). At this point I was not debt free (a couple of credit cards had built up) but was up to date with taxes, VAT and so on.

The new job was a disaster. The company fell apart and was asset stripped by vulture capitalists within a year after the directors fell out, one of them getting sacked from the company he set up, and sensing where it was going, I took another contract job with a pipeline contractor near Aberdeen. Rate wasn't brilliant, but the costs for living away were high (I had to pay for all travel costs myself). It was at this point that I started falling behind on corporation tax. I had bills to pay at home, including the two credit cards (now maxed out) and to support myself and where I would have been saving some money for tax, I wasn't doing it any more.

That job came to an end when again there were no assurances forthcoming as to length of contract. Another job was lined up, but I was out of work for a month, finishing just before Christmas. The debts continued to grow, and at the end of January 2017 I had a larger-than-expected corporation tax bill hitting the doormat. I had to take out a personal loan of £12k with my personal bank to pay it, managing to scrape together the other £2-3k together somehow. That was an additional £600 payment to service.

So in late January I finally started the new contract job and it paid a pittance. Pretty much half the rate I had been on only a year before. I was reimbursed capped expenses, but they didn't cover the costs of even the cheapest hotels available where I was working (Rosyth dockyard in Fife, with hundreds of people working on aircraft carriers and bridges). I was basically surviving at this point, struggling to keep head above water. And then the boiler at home packed in and we had to borrow 3 grand from my in-laws.

Within a month, the person I reported to was sacked for undisclosed reasons. Move forward 5 months. A new manager arrived in our client!!!8217;s organisation and decided to trim the team and I was in the firing line as the most expensive asset in our team. Fan-bloody-tastic. Within a couple of weeks I was gone, and the long-term stability seemed further away than ever.

What followed was 3 months of desperate job-searching. I travelled all over the UK and to various places in Europe trying to get a job. I got very close on multiple occasions, even having jobs offered and withdrawn within 24 hours (ARRRGGHHH), borrowing more money from relatives, going to the Job Centre and claiming JSA. it was massively dispiriting. I had to make an arrangement with HMRC for a VAT bill of £4,500.

I ended up getting yet another job in Scotland. Right up the top, near John O'Groats. Decent-ish rate, but again I had to fork out for travel and accommodation, which again wan't cheap. The 3 months off have put me on my backside now, however. I've got another VAT bill outstanding and also a corporation tax bill for £12k which I have been unable to save up for and now pay. The personal debts are becoming unserviceable. I am paying nearly £4k a month just to keep my head above water. If this job ends, I'm really in deep do-do. I've been working away from my family for nearly 5 years and ended up in a lot of debt. I am giving serious consideration to taking a job overseas, somewhere like Dubai, but even with the kind of money I could get, I'd still just be managing. I'm seriously worried about the impact on my family. I have nothing in the way of assets; my wife owns our house. Will they come after her? (I have 2 cars on HP as well which I'm not including in my numbers).

By my reckoning I have personal debts of £33.5k made up of:
Bank loan (to pay off corp tax) - £8k remaining
Credit cards (3 separate) - £13.5k
HMRC Self-Assessment tax - £2k
Family loans - £10k

I also have company debts of £30k made up of:
Corporation tax - £12.5k
VAT - £6k
Company Credit Cards - £11.5k

Wow, when I write it out, it looks ridiculous. I can't believe how quickly it's spiralled and I can't believe I've let it get to this state.

I can't see many options. I could let the HMRC and other creditors put my limited company into liquidation, but I'm sure I'll still be liable personally, which is fine. I do want to pay it back, but I also want to live and allow my family to remain unaffected.

So my question is: would I be able to get into a DMP including these company debts, or do I need to wait for the creditors to take my company down and then roll it in with my personal debt? Would taking a job in Dubai be a wise move?

Thanks for reading!

PETRA798

Hi there
Long story short, following a voluntary liquidation of my ltd company, Santander repossessed my van as apparently I was in breach of the lease purchase contract, despite asking them to assign it to my other ltd company and my offer to continue making payments. They have now issued a CCJ claim for £6k for the shortfall now they have auctioned the van. I thought I had sent the AOS by email as I had no bounce back, but when I was sending the email to file the defence, I noticed that I had missed one letter out of the email address. I have now emailed both the AOS and the defence to the correct address at Salford Court, and had acknowledgment. I've told them I never got acknowledgement on the AOS and I'm hoping that they don't notice the mistake in the email address but knowing my luck they will realise I have missed the 14 day deadline. What are my options? I am dealing with nasty solicitors who are refusing to accept the TPP with Stepchange, and if I get a CCJ registered against me it affects my ability to get insurance (public liability and van etc). If they get an enforcement straight away can I still apply to pay in instalments ? Feel really stupid that I have made this mistake on something so important, especially as Santander appear to be so cutthroat.