Access To Credit ; DMP

ManyWays

But  BT to an account outside of the DMP removes any theoretical threat of recovery/legal action, ie I'd rather have a regular account at 0% than a defaulted one, even if there was a marginal fee involved. 
This is misguided; for a start you cannot BT to a defaulted account. But even if that was possible, what you would be doing is taking debt that is "sorted", with a default date and no interest, and turning it into a new card debt which will at some point charge interest and which, if things dont go well, will result in a new, later default harming your credit record for longer.

One of my creditors is Virgin, with one of the biggest liabilities, and I've read that they are unusually slow (compared to others) at reaching the default tipping point. 
That is a reason to start the non-payment road with Virgin sooner rather than later. Wait 12 month until the BT ends and the default on that account will be 12 months later. This doesnt help you. You want defaults as soon as possible.

BTs seem to have been your friend so far, but in practice they have just facilitated you rolling and increasing debt, not paying it off.

I agree with @Grumpelstiltskin., you haven't really got your head a round a DMP yet. You may have read a lot here, but you seem to be looking for clever loopholes that will improve a DMP. 

You know how a DMP can be improved from your reading here: affordability complaints, asking for a debt collector to produce the CCA, and getting low settlement offers accepted. None of these are guaranteed to work but any of them will speed up your debt clearing.

Ivor_Problemo

Not right now, but that feeds into my thinking/potential strategy. If I pull the trigger earlier then I can add to/preserve the emergency fund whilst awaiting for the defaults, rather than it depleting and me beginning the process next year. I also have some long term cash bonds that are inaccessible (outside of ISA), that will be maturing in 2027 and 2028. I opened these when interest rates spiked (and well before my circumstances changed). 

Grumpelstiltskin

OK if you are looking for defaults then stop paying all unsecured debts now, but you must stop using your current account with overdraft and as I said use a BASIC current account with a banking group you don't owe money to. Save as much as you can, open an easy access ISA ( again with perhaps a building society), be careful again not to use any banking group you owe money to.

Then wait for defaults to come, it will take some months and they will not all happen at the same time.

Ivor_Problemo

ManyWays said:

But  BT to an account outside of the DMP removes any theoretical threat of recovery/legal action, ie I'd rather have a regular account at 0% than a defaulted one, even if there was a marginal fee involved. 
This is misguided; for a start you cannot BT to a defaulted account. But even if that was possible, what you would be doing is taking debt that is "sorted", with a default date and no interest, and turning it into a new card debt which will at some point charge interest and which, if things dont go well, will result in a new, later default harming your credit record for longer.

One of my creditors is Virgin, with one of the biggest liabilities, and I've read that they are unusually slow (compared to others) at reaching the default tipping point. 
That is a reason to start the non-payment road with Virgin sooner rather than later. Wait 12 month until the BT ends and the default on that account will be 12 months later. This doesnt help you. You want defaults as soon as possible.

BTs seem to have been your friend so far, but in practice they have just facilitated you rolling and increasing debt, not paying it off.

I agree with @Grumpelstiltskin., you haven't really got your head a round a DMP yet. You may have read a lot here, but you seem to be looking for clever loopholes that will improve a DMP. 

You know how a DMP can be improved from your reading here: affordability complaints, asking for a debt collector to produce the CCA, and getting low settlement offers accepted. None of these are guaranteed to work but any of them will speed up your debt clearing.

Thanks ManyWays, it's more about thinking through every scenario. 0% deals can be very useful, and I still get them. I was thinking I might still get them during a DMP, and if I did, could they be of any utility. With further analysis and prompting, it's reasonable to assume that they aren't really compatible with a DMP, even if I get them. 

You're right, thanks. I've taken in all the suggestions around affordability complaints and requesting CCAs.

From what I've read, affordability complaints (if successful) only remove interest and negative markers on the credit report. To date I've not paid any interest on my CCs, so that could only really help once I've stopped paying (effectively telling them it's unaffordable, before they default). If I DMP, my credit report will be battered anyway so the negative markers won't be too material. I don't really anticipate applying for credit again (ever!), so I'm not too fussed about my credit report anyway. Though of course it would be much nicer for it to be clean again sooner rather than later. 

CCA's a probably a more viable prospect as some of my accounts are very old. Down the line I'll wait for the debt to change hands (if I go ahead with the DMP), then request them. 

Ivor_Problemo

Grumpelstiltskin said:

OK if you are looking for defaults then stop paying all unsecured debts now, but you must stop using your current account with overdraft and as I said use a BASIC current account with a banking group you don't owe money to. Save as much as you can, open an easy access ISA ( again with perhaps a building society), be careful again not to use any banking group you owe money to.

Then wait for defaults to come, it will take some months and they will not all happen at the same time.

Well to complicate matters, one of the current accounts with an overdraft facility is a bank for which I also have a CC with a large balance, and a locked cash bond. This was also being used as my central current account. Never actually used the OD, just some insurance against a banking error on my part.

I have manually moved all of my priority bill activity to a different current account. I am planning to move all of my non priority debt activity to a different (third) current account. Neither the priority or non priority current accounts have an overdraft facility.

I think I might just need to hope I suppose that when my cash bond matures I can get at it before anyone or any system at the bank realises they can potentially offset it! 

Ivor_Problemo

The other option to consider was potentially BTing away from the account with the bank I also have the cash bond with. Reason I haven't so far is the BT fee and it's only 1% minimum payments. 

One of the many things I've read in my research is that offsetting is predominately a theoretical threat, and doesn't actually happen too much these days. Not sure I want to test the theory out though. 

Grumpelstiltskin

What is the point of transferring non priority debts to another account when you are not going to be paying them going forward?

Cancel the direct debits, don't contact your creditors and as I said save the money you would have paid to your debts for your emergency fund.

Ivor_Problemo

Grumpelstiltskin said:

What is the point of transferring non priority debts to another account when you are not going to be paying them going forward?

Cancel the direct debits, don't contact your creditors and as I said save the money you would have paid to your debts for your emergency fund.

If I DMP I wanted to have all of my priority accounts in one account and all of the non priority accounts I was going to kill off in another. So once I stopped all payments of non priority. I wouldn't need to look at that account again.  And remove the link of all of the debts from that cash bond. I can't do anything about the card from that bank however (unless I BT/MT from another lender). 

Grumpelstiltskin

You only need one basic current account, cancel the non priority debt payments and close that account.

You appear to be making this much more complicated than it needs to be.

One basic current account, one savings account for your emergency fund and just leave the other savings until you can withdraw them.

Oh and no credit card accounts.

Altior

Grumpelstiltskin said:

You only need one basic current account, cancel the non priority debt payments and close that account.

You appear to be making this much more complicated than it needs to be.

One basic current account, one savings account for your emergency fund and just leave the other savings until you can withdraw them.

Oh and no credit card accounts.

I sent you a DM, Grumpelstiltskin, just for some additional context on my approach.

Yes the ongoing current account shouldn't be an issue, I actually went with the bank that my mortgage is with (no other borrowing, no OD). My mortgage repayments now come out of that account.