£55K in debt, need advice?

sourcrates

pecuniam_hominem wrote: »

We fundamenally oppose each other in regards to debt. I won't apologise for my advice.


He racked up the debts before he had cancer. Whilst I feel sorry for this diagnosis and which him a full recovery, I am unsure as to why you think he shouldn't pay back his debts if he has the assets to pay for them.


Please don't preach to me about reading his posts, I read it in full. I also do not work for a bank or other financial instituation.


I am just a guy that see someone who has racked up debt, has the means to pay it back but won't. As I said before, I wish him the best of luck healthwise. I see many other people on here in a much worse financial situation, with no house or other assets to pay down debt. At least he can pay his debt back and still be pretty comfortable.

Quality of life comes first and foremost, getting well again, and providing future security for the family is also vital.

Adding to the profits of debt collectors serves non of these purposes, situations change, your outlook must change too.

The debts are all non priority debts, keeping a roof over the OP's head is top priority here.

-taff

pecuniam_hominem wrote: »

We fundamenally oppose each other in regards to debt. I won't apologise for my advice..

You are advising someone with an uncertain future to make himself homeless.
Let's hope you don't get listened to very often if that's the best you can do.

thetoffeeshadow

GSDlover wrote: »

No he shouldn’t in any way follow your advice. The guy has been diagnosed with cancer, his wife has had to give up work to look after him. He should follow the unenforcability route with as many of the debts as he can (certainly the wife’s) and explain about the cancer to the other creditors to get the rest written off. He should NOT sell the house. What totally poor advice.

Did you even read his post? He’s got cancer, they are on benefits, wife doesn’t work. Yet you say use a large deposit as a down payment from house sale proceeds? Of course, someone is going to give him a mortgage in those situations yeah? They would end up in rented accommodation, tax payer funding the rent and if the worse should happen, the wife has no security whatsoever in temporary contracted rental accomodation. That’s if she can find a job after years as a carer for her sick husband. Maybe read posts properly before posting in future. And of course whilst going through gruelling treatments he needs to be worrying about landlords serving him with notice to quit potentially every six months.

Are you working for a bank or credit card company? as your advice seems geared in their favour not in the best interests of the original poster. He asked for advice not a moral lecture.

Wishing you all the best, both of you. Follow the advice of Sourcrates and also get yourself over to the all about debt forum ... search in google etc x

Thanking you so much for your kind reply

thetoffeeshadow

pecuniam_hominem wrote: »

We fundamenally oppose each other in regards to debt. I won't apologise for my advice.


He racked up the debts before he had cancer. Whilst I feel sorry for this diagnosis and which him a full recovery, I am unsure as to why you think he shouldn't pay back his debts if he has the assets to pay for them.


Please don't preach to me about reading his posts, I read it in full. I also do not work for a bank or other financial instituation.


I am just a guy that see someone who has racked up debt, has the means to pay it back but won't. As I said before, I wish him the best of luck healthwise. I see many other people on here in a much worse financial situation, with no house or other assets to pay down debt. At least he can pay his debt back and still be pretty comfortable.

Whilst I appreciate what you are saying, I am sorry but I cannot agree with it. Quite a large amount of this debt was accrued since diagnosis, as I had to give up work. It was not something I wanted to happen, but believe me it is not a nice situation to be in and I wouldnt wish it on anyone. Just because the work stopped, the bills did not and slowly over the last number of months things have got on top of us. We have sold our car, jewellery and even other items on ebay to try and make ends meet, We are not trying to wipe out our debt, we only want some useful advice to try and lower our payments,

Selling the house is an option, but if we were to do that, then we would not have enough to buy another house, and we wouldn't get a mortgage. So for that reason alone, I cannot agree with you. But like anyone, you are entitled to your opinion, and as always, opinions differ when it comes to personal circumstances.

GSDlover

Original creditors are not totally heartless, they do occasionally do really nice things for people who have situations in their lives such as yours (I used to work in the industry and have seen this) Please contact your ‘original creditors’ and make them aware. That would be the first step. You are looking for empathy not pity and if you approach them, there is a good chance you may find some. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

As a reader of your initial post for the first time this morning, my initial thoughts are that you need to be fighting that diagnosis and putting all your energy into that. Life is precious and so much more important than appeasing debt collectors. By they way, by the time debts are sold on to debt collectors they have been sold often for pennies in the pound. The original debt has been written off to tax etc. All borrowings factor in costs for losses. Your situation is a loss, such is life. It’s not your fault your life went belly up and that’s why in your situation the kind mod on here (Sourcrates) and myself, plus now one or two others are advising you to look at other options and advising strongly against selling your house.

Please go take a look at that other forum I mentioned and post for advice, you will get what you need there. And as for the mod who’s helping you here, in the 15 years I’ve been reading MSE for interest (I’ve never been in debt nor hopefully ever intend to be) his advice is what I almost always agree with.

Hope you are in a good place today and I hope further posts on here are supportive of your needs. You take care x

enthusiasticsaver

You have had some great advice on here OP and as I said earlier I urge you not to sell up. Your home is your security which is important especially if you have health issues. Unsecured debt goes to the bottom of the pile after essential bills like utilities and council tax and food although I think you said you receive council tax benefit.

Personally I would do as sourcrates suggests and default immediately. Having no access to credit makes it doubly important to have emergency savings so any payments you were making to the creditors you should save so you have a buffer in the case of any emergency. They will drop off your file quicker too if they default immediately.

GSDlover

I see you are now in the right place and am now happy to see you are in safe hands ... they’ll look after you every step of the way x

thetoffeeshadow

Just a quick question. It has been suggested that I should write to my creditors to explain my health problems. I am not sure how I should word this and was wondering if there is a template anywhere which I could adapt to my circumstances.

sourcrates

thetoffeeshadow wrote: »

Just a quick question. It has been suggested that I should write to my creditors to explain my health problems. I am not sure how I should word this and was wondering if there is a template anywhere which I could adapt to my circumstances.

Not really as most cases are personal to the individual, just state the facts, what you are/have been suffering with, how it affects you, and your ability to earn money, current status, prognosis, if its likely to be a permanent situation, etc etc.


Give as much or as little information as you are comfortable with, i have seen debts written off for far less deserving cases, so the more detail you can give them, the better the outcome may be for you.

thetoffeeshadow

Sorry I haven't been on the past couple of days, we have been trying to get our head around all this debt and have decided to go down the DMP route. Already spoken to Stepchange, and although it will be tight we think we can do it.

The information on this site is so invaluable that we wish we had found it sooner. The advice is second to none.

We have 2 credit cards that are due for payment on Friday 26th October, and we won't be paying this. Do we need to contact the creditor before friday to let them know pr do we just let it slide and wait until they contact us.

We are thinking of starting the DMP on December 1st so that we can build up an emergency fund.