Changing to a self managed DMP

Onebrokelady

Ive been on a DMP with Stepchange for 5 years now and it's been great so far. I was paying £90 a month but due to the current cost of living crisis I can no longer afford this and pay for my day to day living ( especially energy bills) . I did my review  and the lady I spoke to didn't come up with any helpful suggestions when it became obvious that my outgoings are more than my incoming. She did arrange to cancel March's payment to give me time to sort out my finances as a lot of things are changing over the next few weeks. 
I now think I will be better off going self managed as it offers me more flexibility but I'm nervous about doing it. All my debts are with PRA and are all defaulted . I have four different debts that were bought by them and I'm thinking I can currently afford £40 a month. Does anyone have any experience of dealing with PRA and how likely are they to accept my payment ?Am I better to phone them or write ( I don't mind phoning ) but I'm not sure if writing is better . Are there any pitfalls I need to be aware of and do any of you have any tips to make this go as smoothly as possible please?

sourcrates

Well having all four debts with the same creditor is a bonus, as you only have to write one letter to them.
Really, nothing could be easier, if you have £40 disposable income to spare, that`s £10 to each debt per month.

Make it clear in your letter what you are proposing, each account will have its own unique reference number, but PRA groups banking details will be the same for each debt, so it`s a case of making 4 monthly payments of £10 to each account, via online banking, using each ones own reference number, to the same PRA bank account, simples.

No one will refuse a payment, you can include a copy of your budget to send with your letter as proof you are paying what is affordable to you, lets be clear, you are not looking for anyone's approval here, if your budget says this is what is affordable, then that is what you pay, if they don`t like it, its just tough isn`t it, in reality debt purchasing companies are much more flexible that original creditors can be, you should not have any problems.

You may come back to me and say, "well what about legal action, I don`t want to risk a CCJ".

As long as you are making some kind of payment, legal action won`t be on the cards, the courts use the same affordability criteria as PRA group do, so there would be no benefit to them going down that route.

Honestly, its all pretty simple and straightforward, life should continue to tick along just as before.

Onebrokelady

sourcrates said:

Well having all four debts with the same creditor is a bonus, as you only have to write one letter to them.
Really, nothing could be easier, if you have £40 disposable income to spare, that`s £10 to each debt per month.

Make it clear in your letter what you are proposing, each account will have its own unique reference number, but PRA groups banking details will be the same for each debt, so it`s a case of making 4 monthly payments of £10 to each account, via online banking, using each ones own reference number, to the same PRA bank account, simples.

No one will refuse a payment, you can include a copy of your budget to send with your letter as proof you are paying what is affordable to you, lets be clear, you are not looking for anyone's approval here, if your budget says this is what is affordable, then that is what you pay, if they don`t like it, its just tough isn`t it, in reality debt purchasing companies are much more flexible that original creditors can be, you should not have any problems.

You may come back to me and say, "well what about legal action, I don`t want to risk a CCJ".

As long as you are making some kind of payment, legal action won`t be on the cards, the courts use the same affordability criteria as PRA group do, so there would be no benefit to them going down that route.

Honestly, its all pretty simple and straightforward, life should continue to tick along just as before.

Thanks Sourcrates that does sound really easy to sort 😊