Pulling my hair out!! help/advise me!?

TKASF

Hi all,

Been mooching about on here and bit the bullet and got myself registered!

We're in a bit of a pickle to say the least, between myself and my partner we owe around £15k plus the £40k mortgage.

Now, we've been in contact with most of the debt collectors and some have been good others have been bad.
We're in the process of remortgaging the house we have to clear the debts and do the normal home improvments etc, but we need some help on getting a decent final settlement figure off the DCAs we owe to!?
Originally we was told we'd get £20k cash in our account and that was fine but they've down valued our house and we've had a poor offer of £7000 from the remortgage, now we need to lower the amount of money we owe to be able to pay this debt and get ourselves right, so a few questions:

how long will it take to get a figure we're happy with and can afford?

Are we better off writing to them/emailing/phoning?

Is it possible for the amount we owe to be reduced by law? ie is there anything legally saying that we're within our rights to ask for it to be lowered?

If we can get things lowered and it's gonna take a bit of time then will that buy me enough time to get some horses sold to make some extra money?

Sorry for the long post but my head's spinning and we're in a right mess!

TIA

RAS

Hi

What you are plannig to do is to secure the debt on your house, which is not to be advised. if you cannot aford to pay unsecured debt, you wreck your credit rating. if you cannot afford to pay your mortgage, you lose your home.

Please talk to one of the debt charities asap, see here http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan#help

And then post up your Statement of Affairs

TKASF

We're not actually looking to secure the debt against the house, we're looking to get some money out of it to pay the debt off!

The debt companies have'nt put any stops or anything on the house but we just need to raise the capital so we can pay them!

All we're asking is how long will it take, as i have a small business buying and selling horses which is a new business but is starting to work well and is set to give us a fair bit of cash to bring everything upto date and settle accounts etc

pania

HI TKASF,

what we mean by securing the debt against the house is taking additional funds from the property "releasing equity" as it were to pay off your debts, thereby converting debts into mortgage, thus secured on house and much more risky. As a mortgage advisor i would advise anyone against this without a lot of thought.
If however you HAVE out alot of thought into it and this is the way you are CERTAIN you wish to go, then you can start off by appealing the down valuation. This is happening lots in the market at the moment.
Do you know of any houses near to you of a similar standard with similar attachments (ie you have a conservatory, so do they etc)that have sold recently? if so contact the estate agencies that these houses have sold through and ask for the original details to use as "comparables" make a list of what if anything your house has above these that would boost it's value, but be realistic.
Take these to your advisor and ask him to appeal the valuation via the lender. Remember different people have different opinions on property and the "human" element can sometimes come into play.
Did they visit your house and come inside or do a "drive by" valuation?
What loan to value (ie amount of mortgage vs value of house) are you looking for?
I'd go down the route of appealing the val as it sounds significantly down valued from what the initial thoughts were before you look at settlement figures for the loans etc. If you appeal and they stick with their valuations,then look at the loans and what you can settle for.
Good luck, hope that all makes sense.

TKASF

Hiya,

It does make sense to me lol

The valuer came in and checked it all out, he originally valued the house at £75k but down valued it to £70k using the other houses for sale in the street to compare to!

Bearing in mind ours is end terrace and has the most land etc but also it's the only one to have full GFCH and double glazing!

We really have no other way to get any sort of money together to pay off these debts, it was either remortgage or go bankrupt!

We need roughly £20k to get right, but dunno what LTV that'd be?
Have an appointment with another mortgage advisor on saturday as this one is taking the mick with it! he's told us so monay different things and all we wanna do is get debt free!

lindens

You're not going to be debt free!!
You are instead moving your debts from one payment method to another, but instead of it getting better you are making it worse. at the moment if you do not pay these debts all that happens is your credit rating goes downhill. If you remortgage, those debts are then secured on your home. If you do not pay your mortgage you could lose your home.

Obviously you have only given us a few details - have you spoken with one of the free debt agencies such as Payplan or CCCS to maybe help pay off your debts without remortgaging? CCCS have a good website and you can enter your figures and it tells you the best way to go about sorting out your debts, such as coming to an agreement with your creditors.

RAS

Hi

You could do a DMP or and IVA, although I would not recommend the second personally.

You could also challenge the debts using CCAs and reclaim some charges, quite possibly. Or put up your SOA here to see where extra money canbe found.

Please ring the debt charities as you need to understand all the options before you go any further.

GeorgeUK

Some links to help you with some of the suggested alternatives above.

These are the free debt charities we usually refer people to:
(Taken from Fermi's signature)

Professional, free and impartial advice on debt problems can be obtained from several charitable and 'not for profit' organisations. They never make a penny from the advice they give, which means it will be given with only your best interests at heart. You can contact:

Your local CAB Office and ask to speak to a 'money advisor'
The Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) - Tel: 0800 138 1111
National Debtline - Tel: 0808 808 4000
Payplan - Tel: 0800 917 7823

SOA calculator: http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Reclaim bank charges: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/credit-card-charges
(Also check for PPI and endowment misselling)

Info and templates for CCA: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=578486