DMP - whats it all about

jodenice

When I went bankrupt, CCCS had tried to set up a DMP for me, but my creditors (MBNA, GE bank etc etc - too many to mention) wouldn't help at all. Not only did they not freeze any interest, not accept lower payments but also piled fine after fine on me, making my decision to go bankrupt easy (though distressing)

The CCCS have recently looked at my boyfriends out of control debts and are advising a DMP for him. I'm worried that he'll end up with the same I had. My bankruptcy was 5 years ago - has anything changed since then?

What can he expect?

Any advice appreciated. x

Richard_S

Hi jodenice,

I don't think anything has changed over the last five years; maybe banks and financial institutions are more prepared to accept them now as a means of getting at least their capital back. Or maybe ths Debt Charities are getting better at managing them.

They seem to be a reasonable alternative to bankruptcy and don't have the same horrendous fees that IVA's have. If your B/f has a reasonable disposable income then he may well be able to clear his debts that way in an acceptable period of time. There are people on the DFW board that are facing repayment schedules stretching into decades.:eek: :eek:

I think there are several threads on the DFW board of people's experiences of DMP's. I'm not sure exactly what the impact is on your Credit Reference Files, and it might be worth checking that just to get a balanced view.

Richard

Broken_hearted

I've never had any really bad problems with my DMP. Halifax act up from time to time. Paying off debt over a long period doesn't bother us as most of the time it's built up over a long period.

Richard_S

I've never really had any problems with bankruptcy; the O.R acts up from time to time, but nothing serious.:rolleyes: :rolleyes: I built my debt up over a short period of time, and expected to get shut of it in a short period of time.:D

Broken_hearted

It's shot not shut:rotfl:

Richard_S

Broken_hearted wrote: »

It's shot not shut:rotfl:

To get shut of something does seem to be a rather old expression, and more a dialectal than a mainstream one, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which I quote with all its citations.


Dear Broken hearted,

I do believe that as usual I'm correct again.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Different dialects, different opinions, different life experiences; just a part of the rich tapestry of human existence.;)

Broken_hearted

Admit it you laughed

MammaCas

Richard_S wrote: »

I've never really had any problems with bankruptcy; the O.R acts up from time to time, but nothing serious.:rolleyes: :rolleyes: I built my debt up over a short period of time, and expected to get shut of it in a short period of time.:D

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Homework

No harm in trying - everyone is different and 5 years ago things were very different.

Praxis99

I think a DMP should be viewed at best as a short term solution to get you over a problematic financial period i.e. give you some breathing space. Its not in my opinion a suitable or realistic way of dealing with a longer term debt problem.

I went BR in Sept this yr having previously set up a DMP with the CCCS. I feel in my situation I could have been better advised and I ditched the DMP after just 2 payments since it was clear to me that BR was the only way forward.

I did feel that the CCCS oversold the benefit of setting up a DMP (which took literally every spare penny I had) and as I looked into it more it was clear that for me it was not the solution that I thought it would be.

The 'deal breaker ' in my case was the absolute reluctance of one of my principal creditors to accept it, though other creditors indicated they would in the short term (probably because I had never previously missed a re-payment).

I however couldn't deal with living with a financial agreement that could be broken at any time (a DMP has no legal standing), where interest could be arbitrarily re-applied and that would take several or more yrs in my case to clear and where if my finances didn't improve (and they haven't as of yet, but here's hoping) I'd probably be forced down the BR route anyway after paying lords knows what to a DMP.

Homework

Depends on your circumstances what works best.

We're with Payplan and work to a budget that is enough for us and paying our debt back in full. Things were so bad that I did not think we would ever be able to get out of the mess. It was such a relief when they said they could help and we are delighted to be able to do this.

Other people may not have this option and may consider IVA or Bankruptcy but I'm sure they would be just as happy with their choice.

We had problems with some creditors to begin with but they paid them anyway and it went away.

It's not short term, it gives us time to pay things back at our pace. Many 'good' credit customers will be paying minimum payments and still spending long after we have paid everything off so taking time to repay is not really a problem.

There are different choices and depending on your circumstances which ever one you decide on will be the right one for you.