Doing your own DMP?

missyp123

Hi,

I was wondering if there is anyone out there that is doing there own dmp?
I am looking for advise on how challenging its is to get around creditiors yourself.
We have started the process of sending token payments of £5, the two biggest creditors have seemed okay over the phone (i know this won't last). But if we can get them on side our other two debts are very small in comparison, and we would feel allot better knowing day in day out whats what.
Also if you get taken to court with any of the debts does managing your own dmp look bad?

please, any help would be great!

Gemmzie

Hi missyp, there's a few of us on here doing our own DMPs so lot's of help available.

First thing, is your token payments should be £1 and made by postal order. This is fairly important.
Second thing, is to get a basic bank account away from any of your creditors.
Then you need a very good SOA as some creditors will pick at it. National Debtline or CCCS can advice you on typical amounts for a household of your size for food etc. You can post it up here too and we can help.
Final thing is the most up to date statements you can find of what you owe, if you're unsure - it might be worth getting a copy of your credit reports too.

How your creditors react depends on the creditor and how much you owe, you can never really tell as people have had very different experiences.
Managing your own debts doesn't look bad to a court at all and if you do your DMP right, you should avoid court for the most part.

Hope that helps.

missyp123

Yes we have sent token payments of £5 which is what ccc's advised us to do with there template letter.
we have also our changed bank account.
from our initial letter request for time we have already received a letter form hfc(loan) this gave us our bablnce less the interest that was stated to us two weeks previous and they have requested a response with our situiation within 14days. im guessing that they may be open acceping?!
We have been with CCC'S all the way with this but have not yet signed and are now thinking we would like to do it our selves.
Would the next step be to send them our budget and go staright in with the payment we can offer? (This would be based on how CCC'S has advised us to work it out).
thankyou

missyp123

sorry also is there a board for people who do there own dmp's? i found it hard to find threads with advise by people who manage there own.

Gemmzie

Is there reason you'd rather do it on your own than with CCCS? As their support can be invaluable, especially in the beginning.

missyp123

i lost my job 4 weeks ago, a week after losing it i accepted a few hours in my local shop but a can not prove my income. i am still looking for a job elsewhere but i just dont know how long this will take.

Gemmzie

Then perhaps token payments are the way to go until you find another job then worry about a DMP after? You don't want to over-commit your finances and fail your DMP

missyp123

is it possible to carry on doing that? how long can this be done for. i would hope if we could it would only be a month or two before i find something suitable, its jsut that i need to continue working nights as i have a baby, also i am going to college to do my access course so i can train to be a midwife.

Leixlip1

I do my own dmp and only one creditor, AMEX, took me to court. They ended up getting an order requiring me to pay what I was already paying via my dmp.The judge was slightly bemused why they had taken the action as I had been making payments for several months; had proved agreements with all other creditors were on a pro-rata basis etc
I like to be in control so that's why I'm doing my own dmp - for other people using CCCS or Paypaln may be better. I use National Debtline for advice and support.
Most of my creditors have been "happy" to deal with me and accept my pro-rata offers of payment and have frozen interest and charges. Some have been supportive from the start and other such as Lloyds-TSB have been obstructive, unhelpful etc but overall doing my own dmp works for me.
Good luck.

Broken_hearted

I run my own DMP because CCCS won't help us unless we go bankrupt. My creditors are happy most of the time and our DMP is much more flexable than one run by a company. We are also paying the debts off faster.

missyp123

We are sure that we need to do the dmp so that we can tackle the debt asap. We dont want to drag it on any longer than it needs to.

I contacted a company that you do have to pay a fee to manage the dmp for us. The main reason we have done this is we still feel a little worried that one of our debts is £30k and the rest only totals to the other £10k owe. The creditor may be more of a hassle than the others?

What do you think of us using the company to start it and once our DMP is accepeted (hopefully) by all 4 creditors we can take it over?
Our thinking is that by having a reference number to give to all of them they will back off more than us doing it by ourselves.