Moving abroad and F&F

al21ex

Hi

Me and my other half are both on a DMP and are selling our house to move to Canada.
Our debts amounts to roughly £25000-£30000 each. The sale of our house will release an amount of equity which should helps us to make a F&F. We have allowed up to 60-70% of our debt to settlement. We need the rest of the money to cover our moving cost and a down payment to a very small house. We have to move as soon as the sale is finalised (3-4 weeks time)

My question relate to the way we should approach this settlement. Should we start the negotiations now before we finalise the sale of our house and take a risk that creditors will enquiry about how we got the money and refuse to make settlement and require the full payment at once? Or should we wait till we are in Canada and correspond/negotiate via email. Will the creditors be more enclined to settle for less money since we are already abroad or are we just gonna shoot ourselves in the foot?

We are not worried about the effect of F&F on our credit file.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Willing2Learn

Are the debts secured against your home?

Edit: And welcome to the forum

al21ex

No none of our debts are secured, forgot to mention

Willing2Learn

Then, if I was you I wouldn't tell them that the house had been sold. If asked, I would tell them we've both been working lots of overtime or something similar. I would probably start with a low offer for each debt and go from there. There is a letter template for Full & Final offers on National Debtline website (There is a link on that page for an alternate debt if in joint names):
https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/sampleletters/Pages/Full-and-final-settlement-offers-%28sole-name%29.aspx#

Edit: But wait for other MSErs to come for advice as I cannot be certain...

January2015

Personally I would wait until you have emigrated and write then and say we've emigrated and we can settle your debt for 10% of the outstanding balance. I think they would bite your hand off at that point as the cost of trying to chase you for the debt when you are abroad would not be worth it to them.

That's my opinion but I'm sure others with more expertise will be along shortly to give you some sound advice.

sourcrates

Very unlikely your debts will be chased to Canada ����.

Would cost them more than th3 debt was worth probably.

If they are, and you are contacted, settle with then then.

Otherwise, I would not bother, after 6 years all will be forgiven.

It’s up to you, if you feel morally obliged to pay then do so, they have most likely had their pound of flesh already.

al21ex

They have had their pound of flesh indeed but I’m afraid that the bulk of my debts are loans from Barclay and HSBC which have branches in Canada. I know (from previous post on this forum) that there is a reciprocal agreement between UK and Canada which makes me even more wary on how to play my cards...

Teamocil

al21ex wrote: »

They have had their pound of flesh indeed but I’m afraid that the bulk of my debts are loans from Barclay and HSBC which have branches in Canada. I know (from previous post on this forum) that there is a reciprocal agreement between UK and Canada which makes me even more wary on how to play my cards...

I don't know much about this so I might be making a total non-point here, but have Barclays and HSBC sold these debts on? If so, I'd presume they're no longer any of their concern.

al21ex

Unfortunately they haven’t, Barclay’s debt with their in house recovery agency and HSBC has bought back their own debts🙄