DMP and Full and Final Settlements

Bobb12345

I currently have around £9,000 of debt across 5 creditors, paying back via Stepchange and have been paying back for around 2.5 years. I'm looking to make a full and final settlement. Breakdown is below:

Sainsburys: £2,600
PRA Group: £5,420 (from Barclaycard and MBNA)
First Direct: £1,423

Can anyone advise on how much I might need and how I might go about negotiating full and final settlements. I have heard about requesting a CCA from PRA Group, but they have sent me a statement explaining they have purchased the debt. 

Obviously, (like anyone) I want to get these cleared ASAP and any advice would be most appreciated. Would £5,000 or £6,000 be enough to clear the above debt? Many thanks in advance. 

sourcrates

Bobb12345 said:

I have heard about requesting a CCA from PRA Group, but they have sent me a statement explaining they have purchased the debt. 

And the significance of this is ????

Its your statutory right to make a CCA request, PRA won`t have any paperwork, and if the two debts have been cobbled together into one amount, then Barclaycard and MBNA won`t have any either, I can tell you now that account will be unenforceable.

Making a CCA request is a pre-requisite to making any settlement offer, if a debt cannot be proved, then you can just walk away from it.

Most use lack of a CCA to obtain favourable settlement offers, how much you offer depends on your available funds, basic advice is to start low, as you can always increase your offer.

Think of it more of a marathon than a sprint, as these things take a very long time to come to an amicable agreement, feel free to negotiate over the phone, but any agreement must be backed up in writing before you part with any money.

You must also ensure that any agreement states that "any debt remaining will not be chased by the company or any agents of the company", that is most important.

So, CCA requests first, see what comes back from those, then act accordingly.

Bobb12345

Many thanks. It is actually 2 separate debts that have been sold to PRA. I guess I need to send 2 letters asking for the 2 separate CCAs? That's no problem. 

I will send a letter to them asking them for the CCA and see what happens. If it turns out (as you say) they can't produce them, then I shall stop payments to them. I can find a template for the CCA and we can go from there. Many thanks again. 

fatbelly

Are all those four showing as defaulted on your credit file?

Bobb12345

Yes all debts have defaulted. 2 of them were sold to PRA Group. I have sent letters to PRA group asking for CCA this morning, and so will see what happens. I'm prepared to offer a full and final settlement to the others. Will be interesting to see what they say with regards to how much they will accept. 

fatbelly

Pitch a low offer to them and see how they respond

Kakiste

I recently got HSBC to settle an old personal loan for 60% of remaining balance. I negotiated via the phone which spend things up; I first offered 40%, then 50% and eventually 60% which was accepted- I then waited for the letter to state that it would be a final settlement and they wouldn't chase the remaining balance and paid it. Doing it via the phone meant the whole process took less than 7 weeks. 

BlueJ94

Kakiste said:

I recently got HSBC to settle an old personal loan for 60% of remaining balance. I negotiated via the phone which spend things up; I first offered 40%, then 50% and eventually 60% which was accepted- I then waited for the letter to state that it would be a final settlement and they wouldn't chase the remaining balance and paid it. Doing it via the phone meant the whole process took less than 7 weeks. 

Woohoo well done!

I found this, with Vanquis they spent ages via email so in the end I rang them and they accepted my offer there and then. Recently I sent an email to Likely Loans offering £200 instead of my £800 balance and to my surprise they responded quickly and accepted and now today I offered 50% to Aqua which they accepted! 

Bobb12345

I have called First Direct today and made them an offer of 40% as a full and final settlement of my debt of around £1300. They advised that any Full and Final Settlement would need to come via my debt management company (StepChange). However, I don't think that is correct is it? Can anyone advise? 

I'm waiting for them to 'assess' my offer and for them to come back to me next week. I don't really know what they have to assess, but there we go. Anyways, if anyone could advise on if a Full and Final payment needs to come via StepChange that would be great. Many thanks. 

fatbelly

It's your debt. You can make an offer

Rob5342

"Assessing" the offer is just a negotiating tactic. If they said what about 70% straight away then you might immediately offer 50%. They drag it out in the hope that when they come back with 70% you will accept that instead of making another offer they drag out the response to. It's like buying a car where the salesman knows exactly how much they can sell the car for and much commission they will make, but pretend they have to go and try and pursuafe their manager to accept your offer.