DMP mutual support thread part 13 !!

Willing2Learn

sunshinevicky said:

1. My husband knows nothing of my debts and would be horrified- he has a high position in a bank and I’m worried my DMP would affect him?
2. I’m worried about what happens when you stop paying creditors... am I likely to get bailiffs knocking at the door?
3. I have a Bank account and CC with Nationwide which I have had for 10years... the balance on CC is £1k but I am paying more than minimum on this each month so I would ideally like to not include this in my DMP so I could keep the same bank account running- would this be possible? 

I’m really sorry for the long post I am feeling low and scared and have nowhere else to turn .... I really want to start making positive improvements on my debt but also don’t want to lose my family/marriage because of it!

1.  Do you have any joint accounts?  If you do, then you would be financially linked.
2.  It would take many, many months (over a year) of non-payment before bailiffs would be involved.  But you are looking to start a DMP, so that should not be a problem
3.  If you want to give preferential treatment to one of your creditors, then you would need to self-manage your DMP.  Have a read of the linked website.  It is a fantastic resource to use, if you do decide to self-manage.

And I recommend you delay the start date of your DMP by a good six months.  You could send all your creditors 'holding' letters, requesting that your accounts are placed on hold, whilst you seek advice.

https://nedcab.cabmoney.org.uk/dmp.asp

cherokee

Willing2Learn said:

cherokee said:

I've had a CCA response from PRA group about a Barclaycard debt. The letter says they are enclosing information received to date ( a "copy statement" print out)  and say they currently deem the debt as unenforceable. Then they say if they obtain information in the future they will provide it to me immediately.  Please can anyone advise what my next step should be here?  Should I offer a low final settlement or wait to see if they come back with any other information - thanks

You can withhold any further payment toward the account, whilst they attempt to locate a 'true copy' of your agreement.
or
You could make a low percentage, written Full & Final Settlement offer, via Royal Mail

Thank you for the advice.  In was paying this on a DMP with stepchange which I’ve paused due to the pandemic.  If I withhold payment do you think i should ask SC not to include it when the DMP restarts?  Thank you 

Willing2Learn

Palpitations said:

Hi- I’ve got my own DMP (most accounts defaulted may onwards last year) I’ve got 3 accounts with creation who have been horrendous. I’ve only just managed to settle one and they instructed solicitors threatening court, they’ve accepted payment. 

I’ve still got 2 and they continuously send me statements (I haven’t paid for over a year!) I’ve contacted them in the past the same way as all my other creditors but they end up asking for payslips which I don’t want to provide. Out of the 2 accounts only one is showing as defaulted and the other is showing on my credit file as up to date (?) my worry is the other accounts are obviously going to drop off my credit file eventually but the longer they take to default this 1 account is this going to take even longer for my credit file to be improved the longer this one default is delayed? This has been going on about 18 months now and I’m at a Loss what to do, advice appreciated. 

Maybe you could write to Creation, offering a payment schedule for the defaulted account.  With regard to the third Creation account that has not been defaulted, you could write that you can start a payment plan for that account too, once it has been defaulted, backdated to when you were 3-6 months in arrears.

And well done on successfully paying down the first Creation account. 

sunshinevicky

Willing2Learn said:

sunshinevicky said:

1. My husband knows nothing of my debts and would be horrified- he has a high position in a bank and I’m worried my DMP would affect him?
2. I’m worried about what happens when you stop paying creditors... am I likely to get bailiffs knocking at the door?
3. I have a Bank account and CC with Nationwide which I have had for 10years... the balance on CC is £1k but I am paying more than minimum on this each month so I would ideally like to not include this in my DMP so I could keep the same bank account running- would this be possible? 

I’m really sorry for the long post I am feeling low and scared and have nowhere else to turn .... I really want to start making positive improvements on my debt but also don’t want to lose my family/marriage because of it!

1.  Do you have any joint accounts?  If you do, then you would be financially linked.
2.  It would take many, many months (over a year) of non-payment before bailiffs would be involved.  But you are looking to start a DMP, so that should not be a problem
3.  If you want to give preferential treatment to one of your creditors, then you would need to self-manage your DMP.  Have a read of the linked website.  It is a fantastic resource to use, if you do decide to self-manage.

And I recommend you delay the start date of your DMP by a good six months.  You could send all your creditors 'holding' letters, requesting that your accounts are placed on hold, whilst you seek advice.

Hi thanks so much for you reply.
We don’t have any joint accounts and mortgage in on his name as finances have always been seperate.
i will look into self managing but it scares me! Could I not just not tell Step Change about the credit card with my bank and then my bank account would be safe?
What do you mean by delay starting the plan? Would this not then mean bailiffs would come to the house for the debts?

sorry for all the questions

Suseka97

sunshinevicky
.......

We don’t have any joint accounts and mortgage in on his name as finances have always been seperate.
i will look into self managing but it scares me! Could I not just not tell Step Change about the credit card with my bank and then my bank account would be safe?
What do you mean by delay starting the plan? Would this not then mean bailiffs would come to the house for the debts?
sorry for all the questions

What W2L means by delaying is that by doing so you give yourself time to build up an emergency fund for those unforeseen expenses going forward - and no, you won't have bailiffs coming to you house during that timeframe.  For a bailiff to get involved your debt would have had to go to court, you'd have had to stop paying whatever judgement was made etc. etc.  There are so very many more hoops your debts would have to go through to get to that point and you'll always be in a position to stop that happening.

Anyway - back to the hear and now.  First thing to do is write to all your creditors (leaving the Nationwide CC out of it for now) telling them you are in financial difficulty due to income loss etc.  You can tell them you are seeking advice from one of the debt charities and that you'll get back to them when you are in a position to agree a suitable repayment plan.  You don't need to go into any more detail than that at this point.  Most, if not all will put your account/s on hold for at least 1 month at the outset.

The website link sent will give you all the information you need if you want to self-manage your DMP - or you can go with one of the debt charities (e.g StepChange). If you want to keep your bank account unaffected by this - my advice would be to clear the NW CC before you get into the DMP.   If you don't, then whether you self-manage or not, your bank has the 'right to offset' anyway and you might find they withdraw some of your banking privileges (such as overdraft, cheque book etc.), they may even make you switch to a basic bank account and that would make it more obvious to your husband that something is awry. 

If you hold off for the 3 - 6 months before launching into a DMP (if that's what you decide to do) then you may find that you can clear the NW CC debt without too much problem.

Suseka97

cherokee said:

Willing2Learn said:

cherokee said:

I've had a CCA response from PRA group about a Barclaycard debt. The letter says they are enclosing information received to date ( a "copy statement" print out)  and say they currently deem the debt as unenforceable. Then they say if they obtain information in the future they will provide it to me immediately.  Please can anyone advise what my next step should be here?  Should I offer a low final settlement or wait to see if they come back with any other information - thanks

You can withhold any further payment toward the account, whilst they attempt to locate a 'true copy' of your agreement.
or
You could make a low percentage, written Full & Final Settlement offer, via Royal Mail

Thank you for the advice.  In was paying this on a DMP with stepchange which I’ve paused due to the pandemic.  If I withhold payment do you think i should ask SC not to include it when the DMP restarts?  Thank you 

I think its likely you will need to part-ways from SC and self-manage. I assume you've sent off other CCAs and so this is just the first response relating to that action.  
SC's mantra is that you should treat all creditors equally and so they won't be supportive of your attempt to off F&Fs to the PRA group.  Also, at this point although your PRA debt is UE, I think it safe to say you won't get very good discount offers from them - its too soon.  What you need to do is stop paying them for a good while and focus on paying any that are not UE. When they are cleared, then return to the F&F option with PRA.

I speak from experience here - I've got 3 x UE accounts with PRA and it took around 18mths to 2 years before they would consider any sort of decent discount.

sunshinevicky

Suseka97 said:

sunshinevicky
.......

We don’t have any joint accounts and mortgage in on his name as finances have always been seperate.
i will look into self managing but it scares me! Could I not just not tell Step Change about the credit card with my bank and then my bank account would be safe?
What do you mean by delay starting the plan? Would this not then mean bailiffs would come to the house for the debts?
sorry for all the questions

What W2L means by delaying is that by doing so you give yourself time to build up an emergency fund for those unforeseen expenses going forward - and no, you won't have bailiffs coming to you house during that timeframe.  For a bailiff to get involved your debt would have had to go to court, you'd have had to stop paying whatever judgement was made etc. etc.  There are so very many more hoops your debts would have to go through to get to that point and you'll always be in a position to stop that happening.

Anyway - back to the hear and now.  First thing to do is write to all your creditors (leaving the Nationwide CC out of it for now) telling them you are in financial difficulty due to income loss etc.  You can tell them you are seeking advice from one of the debt charities and that you'll get back to them when you are in a position to agree a suitable repayment plan.  You don't need to go into any more detail than that at this point.  Most, if not all will put your account/s on hold for at least 1 month at the outset.

The website link sent will give you all the information you need if you want to self-manage your DMP - or you can go with one of the debt charities (e.g StepChange). If you want to keep your bank account unaffected by this - my advice would be to clear the NW CC before you get into the DMP.   If you don't, then whether you self-manage or not, your bank has the 'right to offset' anyway and you might find they withdraw some of your banking privileges (such as overdraft, cheque book etc.), they may even make you switch to a basic bank account and that would make it more obvious to your husband that something is awry. 

If you hold off for the 3 - 6 months before launching into a DMP (if that's what you decide to do) then you may find that you can clear the NW CC debt without too much problem.

Thank you for this information... it is all so helpful. I think the thought of not paying anything (although by not paying anything for 3/4 months I would be able to clear NW Credit Card and have around £400/£500 in an emergency fund) scares me to death! But I guess if I bite the bullet and send all the letters to say I am in financial difficulty and seeking advice it at least gives me a bit of breathing space and then look at either self managing or using step change. 

I think my main fear is the barrage of phone calls and letters I will get .... is there a way I can stop phone calls to the home phone at least?

natlie

Hi, I am just about to start a DMP I have sent off for my paperwork and feeling nervous but relieved. I was wondering if anyone know which of these companies are typical rejecters my debts are currently with Virgin, Barclaycard, MBNA, Paypal and Tesco 
Thanks
Nat

deano1506

natlie said:

Hi, I am just about to start a DMP I have sent off for my paperwork and feeling nervous but relieved. I was wondering if anyone know which of these companies are typical rejecters my debts are currently with Virgin, Barclaycard, MBNA, Paypal and Tesco 
Thanks
Nat

Hi Nat, im sure the experts will be along soon ; however i have experience of Tesco, MBNA & Barclaycard - when i started my DMP i owed about 46k over 8 creditors. I was paying about 400 per month and at the time all creditors seemed happy with that. What I wish I had done is stop paying them all completely for at least 6 months, this will enable you to save up an emergency fund, plus it will mean that the creditors will have no option but to default you. In your scenario a default is good. A default will drop off your credit file 6 years after the default date. I had to raise complaint when accounts were not defaulted which was long and stressful. So thats what i would do. I started my DMP in 2013 and i still owe 3750; but i have stopped paying them now and I have asked for valid Consumer Credit Agreements (CCA), if they cannot provide these legal documents then the debts are unenforceable in court - so I may end up paying nothing more or some as part of a full and final settlement. Anyway hope that makes sense - and good luck 

natlie

deano1506 said:

Hi Nat, im sure the experts will be along soon ; however i have experience of Tesco, MBNA & Barclaycard - when i started my DMP i owed about 46k over 8 creditors. I was paying about 400 per month and at the time all creditors seemed happy with that. What I wish I had done is stop paying them all completely for at least 6 months, this will enable you to save up an emergency fund, plus it will mean that the creditors will have no option but to default you. In your scenario a default is good. A default will drop off your credit file 6 years after the default date. I had to raise complaint when accounts were not defaulted which was long and stressful. So thats what i would do. I started my DMP in 2013 and i still owe 3750; but i have stopped paying them now and I have asked for valid Consumer Credit Agreements (CCA), if they cannot provide these legal documents then the debts are unenforceable in court - so I may end up paying nothing more or some as part of a full and final settlement. Anyway hope that makes sense - and good luck 

Thanks, that's very helpful. I haven't missed a payment before so the thought of it is quite scary. I do have an emergency fund which I was going to use to pay off my Virgin card - should I keep this instead?