DMP Mutual Support Thread - Part 12

sourcrates

It's covered here :

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/39/section/77

Keezing

6 months into my DMP I thought I'd share my experiences.

American Express - Complete incompetence, didn't respond to letters or follow-up on phone calls. Didn't understand how DMPs work but eventually defaulted and passed to NCO. NCO accepted my DMP offer immediately and the first repayment went out this month.

MBNA - Happy just accepting £1 per month. They never call or write. No interest being added. Eventually I'll probably have to stop paying them entirely to get them to act but right now it's nice to not be chased and continue with the low payments.

Creation - Complete incompetence, sent out erroneous template letters which had nothing to do with my DMP offer. Default notice received today. Interesting note that they have been reporting that my account is up-to-date to the 3 CRAs even though I have only been paying £1pm.

Virgin - Cancelled all interest immediately, rejected my DMP offer and just asked me to pay anything I can afford. Unbelievably friendly, have been accepting £1 and they never call or write.

Barclays - very quickly defaulted my 2 accounts, 1 was passed to Arvato where they immediately offered me a 40% discount, after declining the discount the account was immediately passed to Westcot who accepted my DMP. The other loan they accepted my DMP offer and are accepting the payment themselves.

Zopa - Default notice received yesterday after paying £1pcm for 6 months

Summary

My strategy has been to pay the creditors £1pm until they default, at which point I start making the DMP payments. I think this is better than going with Stepchange and immediately making full DMP payments, as I was able to build a small emergency fund. So far so good

motivated

Twins wrote: »

So two letters in the post today. One from Westcot acknowledging the self DMP and have said fine to pay £1 for June but to contact them in August to pay the amount I was paying before. That's not what I had written in the letter. I had said I would pay £1 for the months of June-August. Looks like it will be another letter back and I'll send my I&E to them which they've requested.

Hi Twins
I also sent letters from NEDCAB to my creditors saying I will be paying £1 token payments for x amount of months. We have 2 loans with Halifax and they replied with 2 letters, one says they will accept the £1 the other says we will accept the reduced monthly figure I offered after my token payment period ends. (dependant on my financial situation improving) They never acknowledged the £1 token payment. I am still going to carry on as I am and pay them £1 though. I hope im doing the right thing. :think:
M

motivated

Keezing wrote: »

My strategy has been to pay the creditors £1pm until they default, at which point I start making the DMP payments. I think this is better than going with Stepchange and immediately making full DMP payments, as I was able to build a small emergency fund. So far so good

Thanks for sharing, this is how I am trying to play it for us too. It good to find out how others are progressing with their DMPs.
M

[Deleted User]

sourcrates wrote: »

It's covered here :

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/39/section/77

Thanks as ever, sourcrates:beer:

Embarrassingly, whenever I see legalese my brain frazzles:o. I'm assuming:

(4)

If the creditor under an agreement fails to comply with subsection (1)—
.(a)

he is not entitled, while the default continues, to enforce the agreement


means what I think it means, namely that we don't need to pay anything whilst they are scrabbling round trying to find the requested CCA info.

sourcrates

carbootcrazy wrote: »

Thanks as ever, sourcrates:beer:

Embarrassingly, whenever I see legalese my brain frazzles:o. I'm assuming:

(4)

If the creditor under an agreement fails to comply with subsection (1)—
.(a)

he is not entitled, while the default continues, to enforce the agreement


means what I think it means, namely that we don't need to pay anything whilst they are scrabbling round trying to find the requested CCA info.

That is essentially correct, yes.

jcorbygas

Not been on here for a long time and I hope you can bear with me on this.
We started our DMP back in July 2010 following lots of helpful info and hand holding from this site. My first posts were due to the fact that husband didnt know about our debts which was holding me up trying to get things started. I did tell him and the main thing that concerned him was getting phone calls all the time. I started the DMP with CCCs now Stepchange and everything settled down after a while. Our debt started at over £100,000! I just let things carry on as a very stressful job had used up all my mental and physical energy. Having left the job I now have my energies back but far less money available each month for us to live on- so I need to concentrate on getting rid of the £50000 or so left on the DMP. Before knowing about MSE and DMPs etc we foolishly went on an interest only mortgage which expires in 6 years (husband 65 then) with no possibility of being able to remortgage or pay back the capital - we will have enough equity in the house together with pension money to buy a house abroad/live in our caravan so although not ideal we are ready for that situation.
So, as out of the 11 or so debts most of them are pre 2007. Therefore, although I have been making payments on the plan since 2010 is it still advisable to do CCA's bearing in mind the wish to move abroad and dont want old debts rearing their heads much further down the line.
I have checked our credit records and not all debts are showing -which must be because they defaulted over 6 years ago now. Most of them are on the report are showing as defaulting this year but few not until 18/19/20.
My plan is to go self managed with no payments (which were £671) for 3 months to build up an emergency fund (or could we go for more months)and write to debtors to advise of a change in circumstance (husband is self employed and physically needs to cut down on work so reduced income as well as mine) so reducing our monthly payments considerably and then trying for full and final settlements at a low percentage. Would they be more likely to accept low F and F's if they feel that they would only be getting very low monthly payments instead of the reasonable ones they have been getting?

Thanks in advance for reading and any ideas/tips gratefully received.

make_the_change

Well Next replied to my CCA request and sent it for free. It has my signature on so looks like I will wait until they sell the debt on.

sourcrates

Jcorbygas,

You can CCA any relevant agreement at any time, the only pre-requisite is, that a balance still remains on the account.

If your intention is to move abroad, then your UK credit file will be of little consequence to you anyway, should anything "turn up" in the future.

[Deleted User]

Probably asked by someone before, if so, sorry:o

In creditor-speak, is an 'assigned' debt a 'sold on' one please?