Negotiating with Creditors for my Elderly Mother

vka1

Hello all,

I hope you can help. It's a long time since I posted here (thankfully I'm just a year away from being debt free) but I need some advice about dealing with my 79 year old mother's finances.

I knew she had some credit card debt but not the extent of it and the worry it's causing her. She has a modest pension, which together with benefits gives her an annual income of around £23k. She's paying out about £11k in debt repayments.

I have looked at all expenditure and income, and things are tight.

I'm wondering if you would be able to offer any advice about freezing interest or lowering payments when i'll be advocating for her? Or, the best place to start....Something needs to give or it will spiral.

Thanks in advance.

elsien

If there's no power of attorney in place you will need her written consent for people to be able to talk to you without her being present. If she's there, she can give permission to talk to you on the phone at that point but will probably need to answer some security questions.
Can you support her to contact one of the debt charities as a starting point? Is she still living outside her means and racking up more debt, and does she need help sorting that out as well?
You're going to need the full picture to help her effectively. An annual income isn't bad for someone who's retired so why is she is so much debt? Does she know where it's going?

vka1

Thanks at Elsien. I do have power of attorney and have done a weekly and monthly budget for her. She knows she needs to start keeping better track of her money. Although her income is reasonable, she has higher rate attendance allowance which she uses to pay for extra care and help at home. She's disabled and has lost all her confidence.

I think she's just lost track and doing asda and other shopping online hasn't helped.

Any idea about approaching credit card companies to negotiate? Not sure where to start. Thanks.

sourcrates

Can you be more specific about what type of debts she has, and how many accounts in total, thanks.

vka1

Thanks Sourcrates, I should have laid that out in the beginning.

There's six credit cards including RBS x 2, MBNA, Lloyds, M&S and Marbles. Monthly payments are currently £941 in total. I haven't managed to get all the balances yet.

Sadly this has recently increased as someone stole one of her cards (a carer we think) and withdrew £3,000 in cash. The bank demanded a paper copy of the POA and haven't yet authorised me dealing with them to negotiate an interest freeze at least on the stolen funds. Police haven't managed to find the thief.

All advice is very welcome indeed.

sourcrates

vka1 wrote: »

Thanks Sourcrates, I should have laid that out in the beginning.

There's six credit cards including RBS x 2, MBNA, Lloyds, M&S and Marbles. Monthly payments are currently £941 in total. I haven't managed to get all the balances yet.

Sadly this has recently increased as someone stole one of her cards (a carer we think) and withdrew £3,000 in cash. The bank demanded a paper copy of the POA and haven't yet authorised me dealing with them to negotiate an interest freeze at least on the stolen funds. Police haven't managed to find the thief.

All advice is very welcome indeed.

How old are all these accounts, has she had them a while ?

Are you familiar with a CCA request under sec 77/79 consumer credit act ?

She shouldn’t be saddled with all this debt at her time of life.

vka1

Thank you. I’m not. Will have a look. Thanks for your kindness, she shouldn’t. The last decade has been plagued by illness and hospital stays and she’s just lost track. I’m keen to do what I can to make it better.

sourcrates

vka1 wrote: »

Thank you. I’m not. Will have a look. Thanks for your kindness, she shouldn’t. The last decade has been plagued by illness and hospital stays and she’s just lost track. I’m keen to do what I can to make it better.

As a first step, send CCA requests to all her accounts, if they can’t provide compliant paperwork then the debts may be unenforceable in court.

Info and template letter here :

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/sampleletters/Pages/Information-about-your-agreement-under-the-Consumer-Credit-Act-%28sole-name%29.aspx

Just sending this automatically puts an account on hold until complied with.

elsien

How did they manage to withdraw that much money on a card - was she sharing her PIN number? Has she got mechanisms in place now to stop it from happening again.

poppasmurf_bewdley

elsien wrote: »

How did they manage to withdraw that much money on a card - was she sharing her PIN number? Has she got mechanisms in place now to stop it from happening again.

That's what I thought when I read the OP's post.

Virtually all ATM machines now have CCTV of everyone using the machine, and the inside of bank branches certainly do.

£3k withdrawn on a card would require at least 6 visits to the ATM.

vka1

Hi all, sorry the slow replies. I don't want to go into too many details re the theft as it's still under police investigation. Suffice to say, someone in a position of trust was very clever. Most CCTV footage was wiped before it was discovered. And, yes there are now mechanisms in place.

Re the CCA, my mother won't let me do anything that means an account is frozen. I think she's scared of not be able to access funds in an emergency. What might my next step be?

Thanks all.