Landmark unsecured credit file reporting

bunny73

Hi there,
I am having a bad day today, any help to understand this would be good. See pic...I’ve not missed any payments, long call with Landmark yesterday and it seems I have broken the agreement made through the DMP by missing another payment. £250 was sent by Step Change on 05/11 but Landmark phoned me last night to say I had broken the agreement by not paying. The payment is higher than what was being paid as all the other unsecured debt was paid last month. Step Change today said they would send the paperwork to Landmark today to confirm a higher payment would be coming in, but looks like a negative marker will still be recorded. On Clearscore there are about twelve missed payment markers even though I have always paid. I complained in March, got final response in Aug to say they agreed info was incorrect but still not changed and have sent to ombudsman this week but will be four months until someone can even initially assess. Asked local CAB for help and they said no as local authority pulled their funding. Been in DMP since 2013 thought this nightmare would be over after six years, I misunderstood that Landmark wouldn’t stop putting negative markers on my account even when an arrangement was in place. They also keep changing the status of the account between ‘arrangement to pay’ and ‘in arrears’. Person at Landmark said last night it is the law that they must report it but don’t understand as other creditors did not do this. I cannot cope with the complexity of this, what do I do? What is going to happen, in your experience? Will I be unable to remortgage, everything else on credit file is settled now. Sorry for long post, but any help appreciated. Exhausted.

Yahoo_Mail

To be honest, your chances of remortgaging to a new lender are slim to none until that debt is paid off.  Reporting it as "In Arrears" or "Arrangement to Pay" won't really make any difference.  You'll need to get that settled (or bring it up to date) and have a good year or two with no APs being reported before you remortgage to a new lender, remortgaging with your existing lender typically won't involve a credit check unless you're increasing your borrowing so should be unaffected.

As such I wouldn't waste the energy trying to get this amended (assuming it's reported incorrectly which I'm not sure it is.)  There are better things to spend your time on.

Edit: Just noticed though, presumably this was not defaulted?  You could make the argument that it should have defaulted around the time you went into the DMP back in 2013 which would get it removed form your credit file, although the existence of the debt would still need to be disclosed if you are asked abut it when remortgaging.

bunny73

Hello and thanks for the reply. I’m with a closed book lender Landmark so will not be able to remortgage with them. It’s actually them I am trying to get away from as the secured mortgage interest rate is so high it has kept me in the DMP much longer. It wasn’t defaulted, so that is part of my submission to the FO.

Why does it change from AP to 6 months markers though, that’s the bit I don’t understand? And in that pattern? Does anyone know and could explain? Thanks again. 

sourcrates

This is a very common problem facing people who enter debt mangement too soon.

Ideally before starting a DMP, its best practice to get all your accounts that you intend to include in the DMP to default first, this then avoids AP markers, and late payment markers etc etc.

This is normally done by non payment, or token payment, until the creditor defaults your account.

If it dosen`t default, then AP marker`s and missed payment marker`s become the norm unfortunatly, the account is treated as still being live, and so if an arrangement is in place, and that payment is a day late, then its a missed payment, and it can bounce from one to the other, all very messey, and not what you would have hoped for, but all above board.

All you can do now is as advised above, complain that you should have been defaulted, and have suffered detriment as a result, they have treated you worse than someone who has ignored their debts, as their credit file would now be clear of this debt, yet it still showing on yours becasue of the AP markers.

Yahoo_Mail

bunny73 said:

Hello and thanks for the reply. I’m with a closed book lender Landmark so will not be able to remortgage with them. It’s actually them I am trying to get away from as the secured mortgage interest rate is so high it has kept me in the DMP much longer. It wasn’t defaulted, so that is part of my submission to the FO.

Why does it change from AP to 6 months markers though, that’s the bit I don’t understand? And in that pattern? Does anyone know and could explain? Thanks again. 

Perhaps the payments were made late and they're reverting to reporting them as they would have done with no AP in place when you've not kept to the terms of the AP?  Hard to say for sure as you've not been making the payments, StepChange have.

bunny73

Thanks so much for your reply and explanation. Unfortunately I went with the route that step change advised and they did not mention this option at the time. I wouldn’t have known to do that as you mentioning it above is the first time I’ve heard of that. I haven’t been making late payments though, and Landmark have sent me a letter stating this but the credit file hasn’t changed to reflect this. A payment left my account to step change on 01/11 and was paid to Landmark on 05/11 although they said they hadn’t received it yesterday. I am just worried that something untoward is going on. Landmark said I could pay them instead to prevent late payments but they would charge the same rate if interest again as my mortgage 4.77%. I just don’t trust them but am I better to do that? 

Yahoo_Mail

bunny73 said:

Thanks so much for your reply and explanation. Unfortunately I went with the route that step change advised and they did not mention this option at the time. I wouldn’t have known to do that as you mentioning it above is the first time I’ve heard of that. I haven’t been making late payments though, and Landmark have sent me a letter stating this but the credit file hasn’t changed to reflect this. A payment left my account to step change on 01/11 and was paid to Landmark on 05/11 although they said they hadn’t received it yesterday. I am just worried that something untoward is going on. Landmark said I could pay them instead to prevent late payments but they would charge the same rate if interest again as my mortgage 4.77%. I just don’t trust them but am I better to do that? 

Are you not paying interest now?  If you're not I wouldn't take them up on the offer.  Your credit file will be trashed for some time after you've settled this, so I wouldn't pay interest to avoid the occasion "In Arrears" marker.

bunny73

Yahoo_Mail said:

bunny73 said:

Hello and thanks for the reply. I’m with a closed book lender Landmark so will not be able to remortgage with them. It’s actually them I am trying to get away from as the secured mortgage interest rate is so high it has kept me in the DMP much longer. It wasn’t defaulted, so that is part of my submission to the FO.

Why does it change from AP to 6 months markers though, that’s the bit I don’t understand? And in that pattern? Does anyone know and could explain? Thanks again. 

Perhaps the payments were made late and they're reverting to reporting them as they would have done with no AP in place when you've not kept to the terms of the AP?  Hard to say for sure as you've not been making the payments, StepChange have.

I changed the date of the DD to step change to ensure payment reached them by the due date of the 7th. They went through my income and expenditure last night and suggested I go back to paying them directly with the interest being charged again. Unfortunately step change can only take payment from me on the 1st or 10th of the month. It had been the 10th but this had all been agreed to until Landmark went over to a new system. So I changed it to the 1st. Looks like I will have to go back to paying them with the added interest. 

sourcrates

Nothing untoward at all, that`s the system we have unfortunatly, stepchange like you to start repaying your debts as quickly as possible, and that dosen`t always go in your favour, on MSE we try to show you a path to take which avoids negative information staying on your credit file too long, stepchange won`t tell you this.

You should go down the written complaint route first, see if that helps at all.

bunny73

Yahoo_Mail said:

bunny73 said:

Thanks so much for your reply and explanation. Unfortunately I went with the route that step change advised and they did not mention this option at the time. I wouldn’t have known to do that as you mentioning it above is the first time I’ve heard of that. I haven’t been making late payments though, and Landmark have sent me a letter stating this but the credit file hasn’t changed to reflect this. A payment left my account to step change on 01/11 and was paid to Landmark on 05/11 although they said they hadn’t received it yesterday. I am just worried that something untoward is going on. Landmark said I could pay them instead to prevent late payments but they would charge the same rate if interest again as my mortgage 4.77%. I just don’t trust them but am I better to do that? 

Are you not paying interest now?  If you're not I wouldn't take them up on the offer.  Your credit file will be trashed for some time after you've settled this, so I wouldn't pay interest to avoid the occasion "In Arrears" marker.

No not paying interest while in DMP but they Landmark said last night they could change this at any time. It’s going to take about two years to clear the arrears. I am upset about it because I could have paid the minimum payment as required out with the DMP but it had to be included in the DMP and step change decided how to apportion the payments. I did not know til early this year that a lesser payment to them was leading to negative markers or I would have done something about it, my own fault and ignorance.

bunny73

sourcrates said:

Nothing untoward at all, that`s the system we have unfortunatly, stepchange like you to start repaying your debts as quickly as possible, and that dosen`t always go in your favour, on MSE we try to show you a path to take which avoids negative information staying on your credit file too long, stepchange won`t tell you this.

You should go down the written complaint route first, see if that helps at all.

I thought that the national debt charity were giving me the best advice. Seems now that there was always more to it. Four month wait for ombudsman to review and not optimistic, should I opt to pay landmark directly?