Persistent debt

jamaicainn

I have been paying off a large amount on credit cards following separation from my long term partner. I have not missed any payments but as I was making minimum payments I was being persued to make persistent debt arrangements. Most of them are having no interest added abd I am just paying them off. I kept my Barclaycard “live” as I wanted one card for purchase protection ( not that I can afford to buy much) . They are now on my case to make an arrangement. Unfortunately I missed the letters as I was paying by DD and forgot to change my address when I had to leave my home. The options are pay off in full (impossible) pay the increased amount of another £100 a month (impossible) or make a payment arrangement to pay off but they won’t freeze the interest and this will affect my credit file and I need to apply for another mortgage next year . I have been trying to improve credit score which is now fair and almost good. Which is the best way to tackle this . I feel it’s very unfair as I have never missed a payment.

[Deleted User]

An additional arrangement to pay isn't going to have much of an impact on your files by the sounds of it.

However, it may be better to default and have the interest frozen. It will also fall off your files sooner.

Chris_English

If you are already paying the minimum payment as per your then what reason have they given you for asking you to pay more?

Are you sure there are no arrears or missed / short payments?

molerat

Chris_English said:

If you are already paying the minimum payment as per your then what reason have they given you for asking you to pay more?

Are you sure there are no arrears or missed / short payments?

Simply because of the persistent debt rules.

Chris_English

molerat said:

Chris_English said:

If you are already paying the minimum payment as per your then what reason have they given you for asking you to pay more?

Are you sure there are no arrears or missed / short payments?

Simply because of the persistent debt rules.

Yes, that’ll be why they are asking, but that doesn’t allow the company to override the original contract; the customer still has the right to continue paying as per the deal that they signed up to.

The card company may then stop additional spending, but they can’t insist on more than the contractual minimum being paid 

born_again

Given Op seems to have tother card frozen this maybe why Barclaycard are playing hard ball. Clearly they can see that Op is not in a good situation. Thus they want their pound of flesh 1st.

Best advise is for OP is to visit Debt free section & do a Statement of Affairs
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/debt-free-wannabe

Also a talk to these guys is well worth it Stepchange Debt charity.
https://www.stepchange.org/debt-info/persistent-credit-card-debt.aspx

OP please do not bury your head in the sand & ignore the debt. Tackle it head on & get it sorted. Stepchange will not judge you, they will give sound advice to help you out of the hole you are in.

bris

Interest being frozen on other cards and debts has already done a lot of damage. The new mortgage is already a long shot now so it would be better to just get the interst frozen on the Barclaycard too. 

SusieT

Ignore the score as it is meaningless and look at the credit histoty. If you are on an arrangement to pay on the other cards that will be showing on your credit history and will make getting a mortgage difficult. Do you need to get another mortgage, or is it just the fixed rate ending? You could just do a product switch to get onto another fixed interest rate with the same lender, and they would not normally do a credit check as you are not applying for a new mortgage. The other alternative is to go on the standard variable rate but this is likely to be a higher amount than switching product. 
If yoy can get perhaps a 5 year fix by changing products, that would give you some breathing space to get some of the cards cleared before you need to do another product switch and may allow you to get a mortgage with a different provider by then. Good luck with it

scott_lithgows

One of my pals got his minimum repayment increased from 2.25 to 3%
One of the options to stop this happening was to close the account and pay it off at the previous minimum repayment

y3sitsm3

scott_lithgows said:

One of my pals got his minimum repayment increased from 2.25 to 3%
One of the options to stop this happening was to close the account and pay it off at the previous minimum repayment

But that has nothing to do with persistent debt.

The OP is being allowed to continue to pay at their current rate anyway.

Ergates

If you're already in persistant debt on a number of credit cards are are struggling to pay the minimum, then being approved for a mortgage is somewhat unlikely.  Concentrate on clearing the CC debt first.