Council Tax and Energy Debts

clairelgf

Excuse me if I'm in the wrong place, but this is my first post.

I'm currently entering into a DMP, but it doesn't cover my council tax and energy debts which are becoming very stressful.

I am a married mum of two, I work 30 hours a week and our income is very low. We rely on benefit top ups. My husband cannot work due to his health issues.

I'm trying so hard to catch up with everything, but I just don't have the money to pay anything off. I'm getting further and further behind and I'm worried I'm going to drown.

I don't know what to do, any advice would be very much appreciated please.

[Deleted User]

Hi,



check here regarding benefits help.

MovingForwards

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6079770/council-tax-and-energy-debts

fatbelly

clairelgf wrote: »

Excuse me if I'm in the wrong place, but this is my first post.

I'm currently entering into a DMP, but it doesn't cover my council tax and energy debts which are becoming very stressful.

I am a married mum of two, I work 30 hours a week and our income is very low. We rely on benefit top ups. My husband cannot work due to his health issues.

I'm trying so hard to catch up with everything, but I just don't have the money to pay anything off. I'm getting further and further behind and I'm worried I'm going to drown.

I don't know what to do, any advice would be very much appreciated please.

If the dmp has been set up so that you are not able to pay ongoing council tax and an agreed amount to the arrears (likewise for your ongoing gas/electricity) then it has been set up wrongly.

You will need to talk to your dmp provider to reduce payments or possibly stop them completely.

Council tax and your existing gas and electric accounts are priority debts. The stuff in your dmp (including previous supplier gas and electric accounts) are non-priority so you may have to stop paying them for a bit while you get the priority debts under control.

A statement of affairs would help us to make sensible comments.

sourcrates

Just to echo the above, the stuff in your DMP is all non priority debt, it dosent really matter that much if its not paid back in a timely fashion, wearas council tax, utilities, household bills etc, are all whats termed "priority debts" which means they are paid first, before anything else.


It appears to me your priorities are reversed, which is not good, and the reason why you are behind with utility bills, you should never prioritise unsecured credit debt above your essential living expences, the credit debt is not important, the household bills are.

tealady

Are you with a FREE debt advice service?
If you are, good, if not ditch them ASAP.

clairelgf

I am using Tully, who are free. I found them via Money Advice Service.

Are you suggesting that I should speak to them again regarding these priority debts?

I find myself burying my head in the sand a bit, but I really want to get myself sorted finally.

I can't pay my priority bills on time, because I am living paycheck to paycheck. I have enough money to buy food, but I can't seem to keep enough aside to pay these bills.

I can't seem to catch up, I hope this is making sense.

Unicorn_cottage

Hi Claire

Just wanted to say please don't worry as this can get sorted.

As fatbelly said your DMP may have been sorted out incorrectly.

If you want further advise from the people here on which avenue to go down then please complete a statement of affairs. The link is here: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php

You will gets lots of great advice here so don't despair

sourcrates

clairelgf wrote: »

I can't pay my priority bills on time, because I am living paycheck to paycheck. I have enough money to buy food, but I can't seem to keep enough aside to pay these bills.

I can't seem to catch up, I hope this is making sense.

After a little investigation, it appears that although Tully does not charge you any fee`s, it does charge your creditors a fee for agreeing to the plan they recommend for you.

So it appears it is not in their interests for you not to be paying your creditors, as they won`t get paid then either, you have to be so careful as to whose advice you take in this game, the only really independant advice service is National Debtline, everyone else has an angle, and an agenda to service.

My advice, just going on what you have told us so far, is the DMP should be cancelled straight away, you simply cannot afford it, write and tell tully the reasons, send a copy of the same letter to each creditor.

Use the time and money to get all your utility bills, your essential payments, back up to date, that is what is vitally important here, only when thats done should you look again at the credit debts, we can help you with this, you really do need to take back control of this situation and that calls for some drastic action, but it can be done.

clairelgf

I have done the statement of affairs, but it won't let me post it on here, what do I do?

fatbelly

clairelgf wrote: »

I have done the statement of affairs, but it won't let me post it on here, what do I do?

You should be OK if you take any links out