Just looking for some clarity on DMPs

nuttymom

Hi, I’ve been sifting through so many threads to try and understand the best way forward for me with my 50k plus debt across 3 unsecured loans and overdrafts. 

So, I don’t own my house is in my husbands name and he’s always paid the mortgage. I have paid the odd fuel bill and the council tax which I’ve been told means that in have a beneficial interest on the property. 

Other than that I have no assets, I drive a Motability vehicle as my autistic son’s named driver. 

My income is carers allowance and I get my son’s DLA and ESA benefits plus my daughters child benefit paid into my account. 

My husband is unaware of my debt and I really want to keep it that way so I’m avoiding anything that involves my interest in the family home. 

I’ve been paying the full repayments on my loans and minimum payments on my overdrafts- the overdrafts are building because I don’t rant to default on the loans. Plus - confession time- I have an addiction to trading and have lost all my money to it. I’m hoping and praying I never go back to it because the more in debt I became the more I thought it was only right to get my money back from trading. 

I feel sick at the thought of what I’ve done as once I was a sensible woman who actually saved money!! 

So I’m thinking my best solution of a DMP . I’m really really hoping I can get the interest on my loans deleted. Has anyone succeeded on this? 

I’ve read advice here that I should default on my payments until the loans have all defaulted. Is there a formal recognition of when that happens? As in is there a formal letter that’s sent out saying now you have officially defaulted because I’m thinking just one missed payment is essentially a default. 

Can I make sure all my creditors only communicate though email? Tesco bank tend to prefer postal communication and I want to know if I have the right to day email only? 

What about the timing of the default, as payment dates are different won’t they all default separately in which case do I add them to DMP later? 

I would prefer a free charity take my DMP on, do I approach them after the default period? 

Also can I ask what is or are CCCC s? 

Finally if I opt for DMP before defaulting, so that impact on how much they expect me to pay? 

I was reading the thread by the person with 100k debt and he resolves it by defaulting and paying absolute minimum like £1 . This sounds fantastic that it worked but sounds really scary. Wouldn’t paying less than the amount agreed on DMP result in the failure of the DMP? 

Also so my sons benefits count as my income? I have some mental health issues- anxiety will this help to tell the creditors? Also do I keep it from the creditors that I’ve lost money trading? 

Sorry to swamp you all

Finally, if in don’t default and do straight to DMP who is the best to help me secure a deal to remove interest and hope do I go about getting settlement quotes that write off substantial debt? 

Thank you in advance, already this forum is helping just by my reading the posts! Otherwise I feel sick most of the time

Grumpelstiltskin

!  Marriage is  a partnership and you can't go on lying to your husband with such a large amount of debt, you must tell him.
2 Do you have any joint accounts with your husband?
3 If a creditor wants to apply for a CCJ they have by law to write to you by snail mail.
4 Are you receiving help for your addiction?

I would also say that as the majority of your income is in fact for your children do you think it is fair on them to use that to pay of debts that have nothing to do with them.

JadedAngel88

I don't want to come across as being rude but the benefits you get for your son are for your son. If you get carer's allowance then that is yours. 

gwynlas

I cannot advise you of how to live your life but your name will be connected by marriage and address to that of your husband so will affect his credit score. With such a large debt you do need a DMP and there are a few charitys that will assist you if you do not wish to manage your own negociating the freezing of interest. You can contact them at any time for advice on the best way forward, I know that Stepchange will allow you to complete information on line so presume that they all do. You do need to clarify your individual income so that payments are based on that rather than household income.

nuttymom

Ok when I said  my kids benefits are paid into my account I meant that’s where the go so well creditors want to use that? I use it on them, don’t worry about that, I’ve been paying my loan off with my savings, selling assets and now I’m stuck 

Grumpelstiltskin

How much is your Carers Allowance, £81.90 a week?

If so how long do you think it would take to pay £50K plus?

You are not thinking straight, you must involve your husband.

RAS

Credit records are associated with named people, not with addresses. 

Do you have any joint accounts with your husband? If not, then his credit record won't be affected by yours.

You need two basic bank accounts. One into which your carer's allowance is paid, and one for your children's benefits.

You do need to talk to your husband, not least as by law creditors have to send certain letters to you regarding debt and default.

Of rather more importance is that he currently trusts you. If you tell him about the situation, he may be very cross and upset. You will need to work with him to demonstrate that you are working towards sorting out your debt. 

When he finds out any other way, you will have a much more difficult situation.

It may be possible to get some of these debts written off on affordability grounds but you need to separate your finances from your children's and you need to remember that your creditors can see where money in your accounts was spent.

fatbelly

Creditors can see where your money is being spent IF you are banking where you have debts. That is reason number 2 why you need a bank account(s) unconnected to your debts.

The number one reason is to prevent them exercising the right of setoff, where they help themselves to your cash.

You will be doing some things that may look odd, and it is important that the two of you stay financially unlinked, so your husband needs to know that you have some debts and are doing a debt management to clear them. If he offers cash the answer is 'not at this stage'

Rob5342

You definitely need to tell your husband. You can't keep a debt of that size secret forever, he'll work things out at some point when notices that you always have less money available than you should have, you make excuses for not applying for credit when you need a new boiler, he notices all the letters you try and hide as soon as they come and many other things. You are much better off telling him now and getting that all behind you, then you can concentrate on tackling it together instead of putting all your effort into hiding it from him. 

With defaults there is a process the lender has to go through. At some point after stopping payments the lender will send you a default notice. This is sometimes when you have missed 3-6 payments, but sometimes they drag things out for a lot longer. The default notice will state you have to make a specified payment by a certain date to bring the account up to date, if you don't do that then they will terminate the account and default it.

Brie

If you talk to one of the free debt advice charities they will be able to help you untangle some of this.  I would expect all of them to say you should discuss the situation with your husband.  But they won't force you to.

When you sign up with one of the charities ask if they will receive all the correspondence from creditors.  Some creditors are happy to do this to save their client's mental health being affected by the situation.  With their assistance a DMP of sorts can be organised perhaps with you making token payments like £5 a month to each creditor.  Obviously this means that the debts will likely never be paid off but at least you will be taking control of the situation.  

When you talk to a debt adviser ask if a DRO (debt relief order) is possible.  You say that you don't own the house you live in but your husband does.  I take that to mean you are not on the title deeds at all as well as not being on the mortgage.  This may be a bit of a gray area because with a DRO you cannot own a property.  So you would have to find out for sure where you stand on this bit.  The other thing is that as of next month you can own a car but it has to be valued less than £4k.  Again - I don't know how this applies to the motability vehicle if it's for your son.  So either of these might eliminate you.  But if they don't you might be able to apply for a DRO and have your debts wiped in a year but again - only if your debts are less than £50k.  I strongly suggest that this might be something you investigate.

Organisations to talk to are NationalDebtline, StepChange and CMA (Community Money Advice). 

Best of luck with this - it will be a tough journey but worth it in the end.    

sourcrates

Hi,

You have listed a lot of questions, and all have multiple answers to each unfortunately, bombarding you with tons of information all at once will just confuse you more.

So in essence you say you are 50k in debt, yet have only a small benefits based income, the reality here is it will never be repaid by debt management, your income is woefully insufficient to be able to offer anything but token payments, as a short term measure.

Looking further ahead, none of the debt remedies available are likely to be an option, due to your lack of income, and declaring bankruptcy may not help due to the beneficial interest in your husbands property, all I can think of is writing to your creditors detailing your situation, and asking them to make a commercial decision and write off what you owe them, as you simply cannot afford to do anything else.