Looking for help in the best way of paying off large debts

kimwp

stu12345_2 said:

is it possible that someone can pay nothing for 6 years and they can't get/want a  DRO or bankruptcy for some reason or another.in that their income matches their outgoings exactly.
what would happen in that case., would they get ccj saying pay nothing? for how long?
or would the creditor not go that far and just accept that they are getting nothing and the debt will be time barred in 6 years time

I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. You can't give what you don't have.

The creditor would be paying court fees to chase zero payments, so it wouldn't be an attractive path for them. 

EssexHebridean

If you do decide to still put some money to this, I would suggest waiting a few years to do so - perhaps have a set point in your own head at which you might step in with some funds - maybe when they have cleared 50% of the debts through their own hard work, or something like that. that way you can be confident that there is a reasonable chance that the habits have been changed, and that debt will not accrue again afterwards. The key thing here is that your son gains the knowledge and understanding to - alongside his partner - manage their household budgets and finances better in the future. 

Wonka_2

As a 'numbers' person myself, and someone who's previously buried his head in the sand, the numbers (and the exclusions) stand out. Are you/he clear of the absolute magnitude i.e. you mention ~£43k but the numbers add up to £40.5k plus some bills plus some owed to family members ? What's the total number ?

And for me I also ended up in a mess via work expenses where I ended up using the reimbursement each month to pay interest on debts whilst still racking up the capital. I cleared that element by drawing a line in the sand with a separate card and publicly (well at least in front of Mrs Wonka) reconciling/clearing it each month to separate 'personal' and 'work' finances. The risk would have come that my financial position impacted on my credit-worthiness which may then have impacted on my work/earning capability.

Good on your for trying to help him - I wish my parents had been as open

enthusiasticsaver

I would exercise caution on putting your own money in until your son has demonstrated he can manage money better.  

If he is borrowing from family to pay for work expenses he should be paying people back when his claim gets paid.  

Offering F and Fs  is only usually successful down the line after defaulting, interest  stopped and debt sold on. 

Your son needs to do a proper budget, set a realistic figure for the DMP and try to live within that budget without borrowing from family members. He could do an soa as a starting point.  There is a link in my signature. 

lilmorph

enthusiasticsaver said:

I would exercise caution on putting your own money in until your son has demonstrated he can manage money better.  

If he is borrowing from family to pay for work expenses he should be paying people back when his claim gets paid.  

Offering F and Fs  is only usually successful down the line after defaulting, interest  stopped and debt sold on. 

Your son needs to do a proper budget, set a realistic figure for the DMP and try to live within that budget without borrowing from family members. He could do an soa as a starting point.  There is a link in my signature. 

Yes, the ability to manage his money needs to be sorted and something I need to get to the bottom of properly. I believe a lot of these debts date back to his young, single, partying days (I recall very large empty bottles of Grey Goose and Champagne being collected when returning for weekends away with friends). Then the age old problem of CC companies increasing limits every time you hit them and being at a point where you need to use a card to pay for things to have money to pay the other cards. 

I think he hasn't taken in or maybe understood the advice given by StepChange (assuming it was good advice??) His DMP seems to focus on paying the debts and not leaving enough to live on and it sounds like there has been some "bullying" in keeping up his payments from the debt companies which means he has set to a small unworkable amount for living on and work expenses.

As an experiment I have given him a credit card on my account on proviso it is paid off as soon as the expenses come in. The payment is due in a few days and I will see if it gets paid.... then that may give me a clue to his commitment.

lilmorph

enthusiasticsaver said:

I would exercise caution on putting your own money in until your son has demonstrated he can manage money better.  

If he is borrowing from family to pay for work expenses he should be paying people back when his claim gets paid.  

Offering F and Fs  is only usually successful down the line after defaulting, interest  stopped and debt sold on. 

Your son needs to do a proper budget, set a realistic figure for the DMP and try to live within that budget without borrowing from family members. He could do an soa as a starting point.  There is a link in my signature. 

I have a copy of his Clearscore report now and all bar one of £2.5k is marked as Defaulted and the £2.5k has not been updated for over a year. Only one of these Clearscore entries has been updated recently, so I have asked him to get the MSE and Creditkarma one. So there maybe a possibility of F&F offers I guess it depends on how good he has been at paying these. He has them all marked down for paying between £100-250 each for the big ones, which if he is keeping up with them means they may want to wait the 3-6 yrs repayment times rather than accept the offer.

He does work long hours and has to travel a lot so it means he is hard to tie down, even allowing for him maybe wanting to dodge the problem. I want to organise meeting up (2 hrs drive each way) and going through the details in full and maybe doing a full SOA as the one he gave me is only 7 grouped items plus the debts.

The family loans are now stopped and if I do use the £15k it will be properly documented as a loan with terms. Just looking for some template docs for this. 

Grumpelstiltskin

You can fill in  as many forms as you want  regarding the loan but what if he doesn't pay it? Are you prepared to take him to court?

Please don't do anything until you have sat down with him and worked out his accurate SOA and got him to come on here  himself.

Rob5342

lilmorph said:

enthusiasticsaver said:

I would exercise caution on putting your own money in until your son has demonstrated he can manage money better.  

If he is borrowing from family to pay for work expenses he should be paying people back when his claim gets paid.  

Offering F and Fs  is only usually successful down the line after defaulting, interest  stopped and debt sold on. 

Your son needs to do a proper budget, set a realistic figure for the DMP and try to live within that budget without borrowing from family members. He could do an soa as a starting point.  There is a link in my signature. 

Yes, the ability to manage his money needs to be sorted and something I need to get to the bottom of properly. I believe a lot of these debts date back to his young, single, partying days (I recall very large empty bottles of Grey Goose and Champagne being collected when returning for weekends away with friends). Then the age old problem of CC companies increasing limits every time you hit them and being at a point where you need to use a card to pay for things to have money to pay the other cards. 

I think he hasn't taken in or maybe understood the advice given by StepChange (assuming it was good advice??) His DMP seems to focus on paying the debts and not leaving enough to live on and it sounds like there has been some "bullying" in keeping up his payments from the debt companies which means he has set to a small unworkable amount for living on and work expenses.

As an experiment I have given him a credit card on my account on proviso it is paid off as soon as the expenses come in. The payment is due in a few days and I will see if it gets paid.... then that may give me a clue to his commitment.

The only way this can get sorted out is if HE takes charge of it. He needs to set a sustainable budget that includes the payments he'll be making towards the DMP. He should have enough to live on but it will require a lot of sacrifices on his part. He needs to stand his ground with the DCAs and just pay what he has available in his budget.

Giving him a credit card was a very counterproductive thing to do. He needs to learn to live without credit to be able to get on top of things, having access to more credit is just going perpetuate the problem.  

The only difference documenting the loan will make is that you'll be able to take him to court if he doesn't repay you. Why get involved with that when there are other people holding his debts already?

There are debt solutions available that will get him through this as long as there is proper commitment on his part. You can support him along the way but it's his problem and only he can sort it out long term.

kimwp

I agree with the other posters. You need to withdraw all financial help to order to actually help him. Otherwise you are letting him continue to think that he doesn't need to look after his finances by himself.

sparks_2023

Good news that the accounts are mainly defaulted.

Even better news that you have access to the credit reports so everything is out in the open.

It sounds like the arranged monthly payments are too high - and that needs to be addressed. If they take too much money then that just creates an impossible situation.

Chip away at the defaulted debts with low payments until F&F settlements can be agreed.