DMP mutual support thread part 13 !!

DebtHurricane

Lisa, if you can’t afford more than this then Barclaycard will have to accept it. You can’t get blood out of a stone and they will soon realise this and legally have to credit the money stepchange send to them, to your debt. 

Don’t panic, I had a DMP where all creditors except one had accepted. They kept writing to me saying it’s too low, I ignored it and eventually they left me alone. 

Keep making your payment and don’t stress over it. 

lisamarie85

DebtHurricane 

Thank you! I always feel better when someone else has had the same
experience. I just panic so much because I don’t want my parents to find out about my debt and as they live with me I worry about letters, phone calls or door knocks!  They knew I’ve been struggling, which is why they’ve been helping where they can but they don’t know the extent of trouble I’m in and they’re retired with no source of income so can’t help any further, it would just worry them. Thanks again :-) 

sourcrates

lisamarie85 said:

DebtHurricane 

Thank you! I always feel better when someone else has had the same
experience. I just panic so much because I don’t want my parents to find out about my debt and as they live with me I worry about letters, phone calls or door knocks!  They knew I’ve been struggling, which is why they’ve been helping where they can but they don’t know the extent of trouble I’m in and they’re retired with no source of income so can’t help any further, it would just worry them. Thanks again :-) 

Let me try and explain the reasoning behind Barclaycard`s decision.

Creditors regularly review bad debt accounts they are managing, now I am not aware of there own internal policies on this, but when accounts reach a certain point, the creditor looks to offload the debt to someone else.

This will normally be a specialist debt purchasing company, such as Lowell, Cabot, PRA Group to name but 3.
They are as easy to deal with as you want to make it, most offers will be acceptable, as they buy debts for approx. 10% of face value, you can usually organise everything from an online account, so no big deal there.

Now it appears that your review may have triggered this process, so don`t be surprised if you get letters telling you your debt has been sold, oh, and just because they have rejected your payment offer, that doesn't mean diddly squat, you still continue to pay them, until you hear differently.

Its absolutely nothing to worry about, just let them get on with there thing, and you do the same, people tend to worry so much over the slightest little thing where debt is concerned, just bear in mind that the absolute worst that can happen is them taking you to court, and the court setting a similar payment figure you are paying now, and that`s a worst case scenario.

More stats for you, only around 11% of defaulted debts ever see a court room, so 89% of accounts never see legal action.

So you see there is nothing to fear but fear itself, I believe a former late US president once said. 

Your doing fine, just live your life and don`t let the debt, or what your creditors choose to do, worry you, as non of it matters.

lisamarie85

sourcrates 

I was concerned they didn’t like something on my new income/expenditure model. 

You really deserve a medal. You’re always so good at calming a situation and making me feel 100% better about it. 

I was quite happily plodding away, until this rejection appeared. I’ve had a worry free few months since you gave me the courage with your initial advice to go for the DMP. 

Barclaycard and Tesco have been pretty quiet so far. Halifax off loaded me really quite quickly to PRA. Perhaps it’s because this new review of £30 means it will take 64 years to pay off- Barclaycard may, as you say, have been triggered to off load me. I do intend to keep upping the figure to get debt free quicker, but I didn’t want to make it unmanageable so only went to £30 for now. 

I’ve managed quite well since starting the DMP, my life has been so much happier and a lot of stress has lifted xx

Norfolk_Jim

Hi, recently had a change around on my DMP so that it was in my name alone rather than joint with my wife (only one card was hers and it had the smallest balance) but since my DM payments are small and my debt very large it looks like my debt free day is about 26 years away, long after retirement. Stepchange recommended that I go bankrupt but for many and varied reasons I dont want to lose my house - if I did then Id have sold it myself and paid my debts off, so Im persevering with the DMP.

     Thats a long intro to my question, sorry - But in view that my finances are never likely to improve, how long before I should start thinking about full and final offers? I will have a windfall in 3 years time when my teachers pension starts to be due. I expect Id have to go self managed before then, I hear it can be more complicated if done through Stepchange.

    

sourcrates

Norfolk_Jim said:

Hi, recently had a change around on my DMP so that it was in my name alone rather than joint with my wife (only one card was hers and it had the smallest balance) but since my DM payments are small and my debt very large it looks like my debt free day is about 26 years away, long after retirement. Stepchange recommended that I go bankrupt but for many and varied reasons I dont want to lose my house - if I did then Id have sold it myself and paid my debts off, so Im persevering with the DMP.

     Thats a long intro to my question, sorry - But in view that my finances are never likely to improve, how long before I should start thinking about full and final offers? I will have a windfall in 3 years time when my teachers pension starts to be due. I expect Id have to go self managed before then, I hear it can be more complicated if done through Stepchange.

    

Yes Jim, always best to do such things yourself.

When the windfall hits, you start the process to settle your debts for as little as possible, the first step is to challenge enforceability by using sec 77/79 CCA, and making CCA requests to all relevant accounts, see who can produce the goods, and who can`t.

Dependant on the outcome of that, for the ones that remain enforceable, start letter writing, start low, you can always increase your offers, creditors generally need a good reason why they should accept a lump sum, rather than sticking to monthly payments, so use the fact your not getting any younger, your income will be reducing, your DMP is predicted to last 26 years, I'm sure you get the gist.

Can be a long drawn out process, but lots of people achieve good discounts when they persevere.

19ryanh93

I have sent off for CCA requests and have had 3 come back as unenforceable for now, I am still paying £1 payments towards them at the moment, i was wondering, what is the score with offering F&Fs a bit further down the road, is doing that accepting liability of the debt and therefore making them enforceable or do they still remain unenforceable until they get the required CCA?

Also is it best to stop payments altogether to unenforcable debts?

sourcrates

19ryanh93 said:

I have sent off for CCA requests and have had 3 come back as unenforceable for now, I am still paying £1 payments towards them at the moment, i was wondering, what is the score with offering F&Fs a bit further down the road, is doing that accepting liability of the debt and therefore making them enforceable or do they still remain unenforceable until they get the required CCA?

Also is it best to stop payments altogether to unenforcable debts?

You are still acknowledging the debt by paying it, so it will never become statute barred as long as you do this.

Enforceability, and liability, are two entirely separate things altogether.

If a debt is yours, and you accept that, then that is accepting liability.

Enforceability is having the legal right to take you to court to force payment, without a valid copy of the credit agreement, they cannot do that.

KatieAnne

Firstly want to thank everyone that posts and all the advice offered on here, I have lurked over the years and tried to read up as much as possible. We have been in DMP with Stepchange for 4 years and have paid of £17k off origianl £72k  ( 4 x Credit Cards and Next ).... I am approaching 55 next year so plan has always been to pay off / catch up with our Mortgage then, by cashing in a pension..... We have a Offset Mortgage...so all the years we were juggling with our credit card debt, with lots of stress we were offsetting our Mortgage to pay for everything else. Today I phoned up our Mortgage company to enquire how much we would need to pay a month to catch up, so that our Mortgage will be fully paid in 2030. We currently pay £1283 and need to pay £1632 per month.   We  currently pay Stepchange £407 per month.....if we were to pay £1632 mortgage .. we would need to reduce stepcharge to just £58, which is a huge decrease.  I know that we should have been paying less the last few years but to be honest I was just so scared and anxious, it was a releif just to get the debt reduced.  Our 4 Credit Cards are 2 x Tesco & 2 x MBNA.... they are all with PRA....  I phoned PRA today to enquire how much settlement they would offer, explaining that next year I may use my Pension to play catch up with our Mortgage or to clear some of our debt ....  PRA said 2 x Tesco would not offer any settlement offer and MBNA would except 1k off £15k and £17k..   At the beginning of our DMP I requested CCA's and did not get anything back from Tesco ( Card taken out 1997) ... but the others were enforceable . I have logged onto Stepchange and updated Mortgage amount and I need to contact them to discuss.  Is it best I go self managed, I am quite nervous about it all ?  Will PRA accept the reduced offer ?

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sourcrates

KatieAnne said:

Firstly want to thank everyone that posts and all the advice offered on here, I have lurked over the years and tried to read up as much as possible. We have been in DMP with Stepchange for 4 years and have paid of £17k off origianl £72k  ( 4 x Credit Cards and Next ).... I am approaching 55 next year so plan has always been to pay off / catch up with our Mortgage then, by cashing in a pension..... We have a Offset Mortgage...so all the years we were juggling with our credit card debt, with lots of stress we were offsetting our Mortgage to pay for everything else. Today I phoned up our Mortgage company to enquire how much we would need to pay a month to catch up, so that our Mortgage will be fully paid in 2030. We currently pay £1283 and need to pay £1632 per month.   We  currently pay Stepchange £407 per month.....if we were to pay £1632 mortgage .. we would need to reduce stepcharge to just £58, which is a huge decrease.  I know that we should have been paying less the last few years but to be honest I was just so scared and anxious, it was a releif just to get the debt reduced.  Our 4 Credit Cards are 2 x Tesco & 2 x MBNA.... they are all with PRA....  I phoned PRA today to enquire how much settlement they would offer, explaining that next year I may use my Pension to play catch up with our Mortgage or to clear some of our debt ....  PRA said 2 x Tesco would not offer any settlement offer and MBNA would except 1k off £15k and £17k..   At the beginning of our DMP I requested CCA's and did not get anything back from Tesco ( Card taken out 1997) ... but the others were enforceable . I have logged onto Stepchange and updated Mortgage amount and I need to contact them to discuss.  Is it best I go self managed, I am quite nervous about it all ?  Will PRA accept the reduced offer ?

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The Tesco ones are unenforceable then, and will remain so until a response is received.

PRA Group are notorious on these forums for sticking to their guns where discounting is concerned.

Just keep in mind that credit debts and loans are all non priority, wear as your mortgage is a priority debt, so PRA will have to accept whatever your budget shows you can afford, won`t they.