In for the longhaul

phoenixchick

I am so angry at the moment I could explode. Just went shopping and to get some trousers repaired. As I was leaving the flats via the car park, I stopped to pick up my coat from my car - which was parked in the parking space for my flat. I noticed a parking attendent chap wandering around and taking photographs. I went up to him and asked if he was there about the parking permits. He said yes, so I explained that the reason my permit was not on my car was because it was a new car, the permit was still on the old car which had been writen off in an accident. The chap said ok, and it was fine as now he knew whose car it was.

Did my shopping, by bus, and when I returned I noticed that there was something on the windscreen of the car. A parking charge !!!!!! :mad: . Now I am pretty observant and I am 99.9% certain that it was not on the car when I got my coat out of it. But the date on it is the 19th (which I strongly believe is a lie), although the time says 12:44 which would be around the time I saw the bloke. They want me to payf***ing £85, for parking in my own f***ing parking space.

I phoned up and was told that they would check the photos taken (but any fool can change the date on a digital camera), but that I had to put it in writing. I am going to do so, but not until I have calmed down somewhat. The bloody nerve.

phoenixchick

ISOM hi, thanks for your reply, I will chat to OH about buying online, the main problem is that there are not many sites that do his size, even fewer that sell suits, and some of the suits are not worth the money, but every little helps. I have joined quidco (got £35 last year from the site when I renewed my home ins), and pigsback which is currently at £3.80, I also have £6.80 on my boots card which I am saving for christmas.

An intreigued asto what is an "eek" debt!! Is it the APR that makes you eek?!!

The 'eek' debt is the stuff I have been ignoring but really need to do something about pretty urgently. Although some of the APRs on the main debts are worthy of an eek:eek: as well!

phoenixchick

Yippee for free bingo! Thought I'd have a go, after reading the make £10 a day in Feb thread. Just won and have withdrawn £18 profit! I never win anything.

In_Search_Of_Me

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=581094

Hi there,
Linky above for the long haulers thread, do feel free to come & join us! We'll be around a while! As pepys have said post an soa & we can pick it to pieces & try & save you money.
If OH wont get rid of sky then will be compromise & at least try just the freeview package for a month? Took me ages to cancel mine & I cried when I did but soon realised that theres always sommat rubbish on, even on less channels!
The other way to focus the mind is to do "the demotivator" - liknky here
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/protect/demotivator/
Plus have a look at how much interest you are paying each month & that should help! One of my loans alone was a gobsmacking 12,000 in interest! Makes you think in a way that other things dont - I could have got a new car with that!

phoenixchick

Back again.
I have now gone through the box of random paperwork and sorted it all out into files making a note of all amounts owed. I thought the total debt was going to have to go up to £72,000 :eek: , but forgot to take off the amounts I have already paid , so I have readjusted the amount to be £68986.61. This is still horrid but not quite as bad as I thought for a moment (phew!).

I redid my snowball - must have done it right this time as DFD is Sept 2013, which isn't so bad (certainly better than my first attempt which came up as 2047!).

I noticed that two CC debts, for quite large amounts belonging to OH, are really old - possibly more than 6 years. What is the best thing to do with these? Currently they are not being paid and are with capquest and Mackenzie Hall. Should I send a CCA letter for both, while not actually acknowleging the debt?

There is also another old one, mine this time, which is definitely older than 6 years but was an OD (currently with Wescot, was with Thames). The debt was built up because the bank kept adding charges onto my account that wiped out almost all my pay. They then wanted to make an arrangement where they reduced the OD each time I was paid, still charging me massive amounts. As this meant that I was not getting enough money left to live on at the time I opened a new bank account.

Any advice?

RAS

phoenixchick wrote: »

I noticed that two CC debts, for quite large amounts belonging to OH, are really old - possibly more than 6 years. What is the best thing to do with these? Currently they are not being paid and are with capquest and Mackenzie Hall. Should I send a CCA letter for both, while not actually acknowleging the debt?

There is also another old one, mine this time, which is definitely older than 6 years but was an OD (currently with Wescot, was with Thames). The debt was built up because the bank kept adding charges onto my account that wiped out almost all my pay. They then wanted to make an arrangement where they reduced the OD each time I was paid, still charging me massive amounts. As this meant that I was not getting enough money left to live on at the time I opened a new bank account.

Any advice?

Hi

Do you have statement from the last 6 years? if not, it might be an idea to get both your credit checks and see where you stand.

Debt that is more than 6 years old is statute barred (England and Wales) but might still appear as a default rather more recently.

So you have to weigh up whether it is out of time or not.

On the other hand, with more recent bank debts, you might want to get an SAR out and reclaim the bank charges if these were a high percentage of the debt.

phoenixchick

Hi Ras,
Thanks for your advice. We haven't received a statement for any of the old accounts for about 6 years - I'm fairly certain that it is more than 6 years to be honest. Sorry to be a pain, but I have a few questions if that is ok.

Will I need to get our credit files from all the agencies or just Equifax and Experian?

Is the debt statute barred from the date of the default shown on the file?

If the debt is shown to be in default more than 6 years, what are my next steps? If not, then what?

What if the debt doesn't appear on my file?

Sorry for asking so many questions but I'm pretty new to this. I want to get everything sorted out and obviously if there are debts that are now statute barred I won't need to include them in my repayments.

Thanks for your help.

Bagpuss741

Have you tried here for suits? http://www.highandmighty.co.uk/

phoenixchick

Thanks Bagpuss, that is where we are planning to go, but it is still not cheap.

If anyone can help with the questions I have about a couple of rather old debts in the earlier post I would be really grateful. It is not that I am trying to avoid paying what is owed, but I would rather target my repayments to debts that must be paid.

phoenixchick

I have been avoiding working this all out for some time - it is really quite scary having to put your SOA on paper :eek: . Now I have finally done it, and I welcome any comments (but please don't be too mean!)

So here it is and I apologise in advance for the vast length and all of the stupid bits:

My rather terrifying SOA
Income
My income £2100
OH income £2000 (sometimes rather higher depending on commission, occasionally lower by up to £300)
Total £4100
Outgoings
Rent £1061
C Tax £125 (but this is a big problem, £826.32 arrears for this property and also £557 for this year for previous property - not quite sure what to do about this, although we are expecting some money in the near future which I would put to clear this)
Electric £38 (DD to start from next month)
Phone/Broadband £43.50 (DD to start from next month. I hope to combine phone/broadband and sky when we move in April)
Sky £45
TV Licence £35.12 quarterly DD
Food £200 (this is my first area to reduce dramatically)
Home Insurance £5.74
My mobile £25 (reduced to lowest tariff, contract ends in July I think– will then try to reduce it further)
OH’s mobile £45 (tied into a contract for at least the next 12 months, uses it for work at times)
Mobile (OH’s Mum) £30 (As she had been unwell and is a pensioner OH wants to keep this going)
Car insurance £70.71 (multicar insurance for both cars)
Car Tax £32 (need to pay 2 x 6mths this month!)
Petrol £300 (hopefully this will reduce a lot after we have moved)
Car 1 payment £298.17 (£14,113 over 48 months, apr 30.4% :eek: )
Car 2 Payment £284.65 (£13684 over 48 months, apr 19.8%)
Laundry/dry cleaning £20
Partnership CC £80 (DD set up for minimum payment £1600, apr 18.9%)
Loan 1 £266.17 (£4745, apr 43.59% :eek: :eek: )
Loan 2 £317 (£6959, apr 43.43% :eek: :eek: )
Catalogue £58.31 final payment but this amount pm would cover essential clothes
Total £3346.94
Remainder £756
The eek :eek: debts – currently no payment arrangements made (suggestions greatfully received!)
Priority (and, yes I know I was an idiot )
H Cohen CCJ £397 (my instinct is to clear this now even if it leaves us rather short)
Old C Tax 1 £1935 (Got behind as OH was out of work for about 6 months, fell behind with arrangement and council would not reinstate it. Tried to make an arrangement in writing, they wouldn’t do it – they insisted that a bailiff would have to call round which I do not want)
Old C Tax 2 £1026
Lower priority
My student loan £2655 apr 4.8%
OH student loan £4369 apr 4.8%
Wescot 1 £1996
ScotCall £529 (this is a rather unpleasant one, OH being rather too nice at times agreed to take out a mobile contract for a friend, she would give him the money each month, if she was a bit short he didn't say anything because she was having all sorts of problems. The problems got worse and worse and the bill went unpaid, sadly she died of an (accidental?) overdose and obviously OH has no intention of adding to the burden the family already have to bear)
CapQuest £4185
Mackenzie Hall £4843 (this and previous are old CCs from OH – I think they may be too old to enforce but I’m not sure yet - see earlier posts)
Direct Auto £890 (currently £200+ of it is disputed they claim that this is for insurances, but as far as I can see from the original application the total of insurance at the start was approx £200 and we had been paying the loan for 2 years)
Wessex £800
Wescot 2 £119
Meritforce £158
The Money Shop £250 (currently paying £37.50 p/m but not reducing amount)
Uncle Buck £500 (currently paying £100 p/m but not reducing amount)
Now this is where things get even more complicated! I start a new job mid-April, which is nearer to where OH works (at the mo he is commuting up to 5 hours a day in total). We will have to move house, ideally in the second week of April when I am off work.
The move (estimates)
Rent plus deposit £2500
Admin fees £250
Removal £600
Total £3350
I haven’t included anything towards birthdays, holiday or other leisure. Also I would like to have savings of about £200 to cover possible flights to NI as OH has a very elderly grandparent and mum has not been well.
Ok...I'll brace myself for the worst! Looking back at this makes me feel rather sick.
Thanks in advance for your comments.