Apologies - I did see this over the weekend, but needed to spend time digging up information on this for you, which I have done this morning.

The Lending Code was replaced by The Standards of Lending Practice in 2016 (shortly after I went self managed).

The old Lending Code used to state in section 212 :

212. Personal customers may choose a self-help approach to negotiating debt repayment. Subscribers should ensure that
such proposals are given equal consideration as those presented through a debt adviser.

This made it very clear and straightforward for those of us wishing to move to self-managing our DMPs, but is of absolutely no use to use now

However, it is not quite so clear and straightforward in the new Standards of Lending Practice. What this states is:

9. Firms should consider freezing or reducing interest and charges when a customer is in financial difficulty.
[CONC 7]

The important bit here is that little 'Conc 7' That relates to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) - and I think CONC stands for consumer credit sourcebook (I think!). Anyway, in Conc 7 of the FCA there is a statement as follows:

CONC 7.12.2 A firm must not

(3) refuse to deal with a customer who is developing a repayment plan, a third party who is assisting a customer to develop a repayment plan or a third party who is developing a debt management plan for the customer's debts,

unless there is an objectively justifiable reason for doing so

;
[Note: paragraphs 3.9c of DCG and 3.49b of DMG]

AND (and I think this is the important bit for you)

(5) operate a policy:
(a) of only negotiating the freezing of interest and charges on a customer's debts where the lender has an existing arrangement with a person acting on behalf of the customer; or
[Note: paragraph 3.49e of DMG]

So, the important bit there is paragraph 3.49e of the DMG, which states:

3.49 Examples of potentially unfair or improper business practices include:

e. operating a policy of only entering into negotiations about, and/or
agreeing to freeze, interest and charges, if the consumer has engaged
the services of a specific representative; with whom the creditor has
an arrangement

So - if it were me, I would send them a letter and quote all that bumpf above and let them know you know your rights, even if they are now hidden deeply in the various bits of code with the Standards of Lending Practice. You are entitled to self manage your DMP and they are trying it on.

Pheww.... that took a fair bit of digging to find the relevant bits to make an argument. Not as easy as it was when it was the old Lending Code.

Oh - edited to add that DMG is The Office of Fair Trading Debt Management Guidance

Jan, just wanted to congratulate you on the very clear and thorough advice you have given. You are an absolute star to have taken all the time and trouble to help


The information isn't applicable to me at the moment, although I read it with interest, as all my creditors accepted my SM DMP with no quibbling. I'm doing all in my power to offer F&Fs to the whole lot of them by the end of this year so hopefully I'll then be rid of the lot of my creditors

Thank you CBC

You know me..... I love to quote their own jargon back at them. Often I find they don't even know it themselves and I end up teaching them the rules of debt management

January - you are a superstar! Thank you so much - I'm going to send a letter today with this - and include all previous documentation such as I&E etc. Fingers crossed, these are my only awkward ones! Thanks again xx

No problem. It's nice to have the time to look this stuff up (redundancy will do that )

Good luck - and let us know how you get on

I meant to add - when you write your letter add a paragraph to state that it is not your intention to avoid paying your debts, and you are working hard to deal with your financial problems. Acknowledge you realise the detrimental impact entering a DMP has, and as such it was not a decision you took lightly. Stress that all other creditors have agreed to work with you by freezing interest and charges and moving to default the accounts promptly and you would request they work with you by doing the same.

Yay,just got a letter from MBNA saying they accept my offers payments via SC and have frozen all interest and associated charges
NatWest however are not being helpful,I've just got a letter from them demanding I pay my OD in full by the 12th of April,I am thinking I might write to them again stating my financial difficulties and that I'm in a DMP with SC ( although they know this as they have had two payments now) and including the paragraph from January above,hopefully they will play ball eventually,I must say I thought I would panic when I got letters from my creditors but so far I'm feeling quite calm about it all and it thanks to all the advice I've been given on here,so thanks guys you are life savers

What you might find is that the letters from NatWest are just computer generated garbage that gets sent out periodically. If it were me I'd ignore them and carry on with the DMP as per. Many larger organisations simply do not 'talk' to each other and don't have good CIS systems that show what the state of play is with a debtor. e.g that he/she is in a DMP.

Im going to wait and see what happens next because I got a similar letter from MBNA last week and now they have contacted me to say they agree etc,so I'm hoping NatWest will do the same

As you are still a customer of the bank these letters will be triggered by computer, as said above, it will not take your DMP into account.

These companies are hugh organizations with hundreds of different departments, who sometimes don't talk to each other.

I`d just leave things as they are, otherwise you'll be sending letter all the time.

Just wondered if anyone had any advice regarding the above post? Have sent a complaint letter off to The Co-operative today - hoping I've not missed something in their original letter!!

Thanks,

BDFSH x

First post on this thread as a lovely member recommended I join as I'm at the very start of my DF journey, and looking to start a SM DMP. I have done a bit of research and I understand I need to get an EF and basic bank account started, get rid of non priority DD, do and I&E, get letter templates from NEDCAB etc.. The bit I'm struggling to understand how to manage/arrange is my incomes when doing I&E, as I have 2 jobs ATM

1.My main job is a temporary contract until Oct 2018 (but could be extended and I won't know about that until later in the year). I have no problem with this one except about how it might be taken into account for arranging payments and then how repayments would be affected if the contract was not renewed? It's £900pcm net, so quite a lot to lose if a DMP was based on including this figure.

2. My other job is self employed as a franchisee, where I buy stock to sell on. Now, this is not a guaranteed income, because of the nature of how the stock is sold in sites - not secure. I recently closed my business banking account as I was being charged for the cash handling - I collect cash from sales and deposit it into my current account, then I buy new stock as and when I've got enough to pay for it. I have tax records etc for incom, but since I have taken on this other new job Oct17, I'm selling less now than I was before, having gone from 5 days a week selling to 2 days a week doing it (3 days on PAYE job) so previous years SA032 forms won't really be accurate. Plus it's completely different each week/month as I visit different sites and the amount collected, even from a particular site, can vary from visit to visit. I'm classed as a sole trader and don't have a massive turnover tbh (I've earned about £10/11k after expenses, NICS, etc). I've been running the business for 4 years but took the PAYE job to help pay debts off. Sadly it's not really working out as I'd hoped and I'm in way over my head now, though up to date with all my payments so far. I can guesstimate in advance how much I'll get each week but if I'm ill, or child is ill or problem with delivery/ car etc, then I obviously will get nothing. Example: I might collect £450 in a day, there might be £60 losses(stolen/unpaid for) and 2/3 needs to be invested for new stock, some put aside for NICs and taxes and then I'm left with the the rest of it. I might do the same round a month later and end up with a completely different amount collected, with a different proportion of losses, but I still have to put aside same amount of the expenses money, but end up with less in my pocket/wage. Should I be using the lower amounts for declaring my income on I&E forms or could I work it out as yearly budget, based on previous years, then aim to ensure I do that each month? Because my PAYE job is termly, and salaried, during school holidays I can do more on my SE job, which in effect is like doubling my income at these times, but that's only for 10weeks of the year. Those times make up for the days I lose collections on during term time.

Also, should I go back to having a business bank account and 'pay' myself a wage, and bite the bullet with regards to business charges or would I be able to still run the business from a basic bank account without creditors taking extra money from my account? I have absolutely no profits in the business ATM, and am literally scraping cash together to be able to continue with it, due to all my debt repayments. I have assets in terms of stock out and about, but that's it really.

I hope that all makes sense! Any advice really appreciated.

Thanks, Sam.

Have you considered speaking to them, rather than writing - it might help resolve the issue more quickly. Or, I wonder if you have grounds to complain to the FOS as you have a letter stating they won't default and proof that you've been in a DMP for x years etc. Just a thought, others might come along with better advice

Thanks Suseka

I did consider calling them but felt my complaint would have more clout in writing?? Not sure if this is best though?? Hoping for a response from them within the next week or so (they should receive my letter today) then I guess I will go from there with regards to escalating this to the FOS.

BDFSH x

Hi and welcome

It might be worth you giving Business Debtline a call and they can give you advice about your business income / account. There are not many (if any ??) of us on here with business accounts and second incomes such as yours and therefore it's difficult for us to give advice based on experience.

However, you are more than welcome to join us and we will help wherever we can. Me personally, I would probably just declare the income from my job and see any income from the self employed bit as 'extra' I can squirrel away for emergency funds or saving for full and final settlements - but as I said it may be worth talking to Business Debtline for advice about operating business accounts etc.

Looking forward to getting to know you and support your on your DFW journey

Thanks Sourcrates, I will leave it then,I didn't particularly want to write to them again

Hello

We have just now gone self managed with our DMP which was with Stepchange for about 8 years now. We have managed to pay off over 70% of our debts, some are unenforceable and we are just going around in circles with them asking for credit agreements so we decided to cease payments and wait to negotiate. We really only have one major debt left now and that is a grant overpayment from student loans which we are making arrangements to pay and have been paying for two years so hoping they wont be too difficult.

Not really sure what to expect now, have sent CCA requests to the remaining debts which are no longer on our credit file and are very old and passed onto several agencies. We are not averse to paying them off with a small amount which they have already offered, but servicing it each month with Stepchange was getting us nowhere. We know they don't have credit agreements as they have told us previously.

Any advice on this welcome - many thanks.

Hi unenforceable means just that, forget about them.

Hope everyone is doing ok, fed up with all this rain!,
My update:
Well im still waiting to hear back from nationwide ref my letter asking if they can write off my loan's, i dont hold out much hope for this though.

Sent ratesetter letter and email last week, informing them i am seeking help from stepchange and please put hold on my account (i have 4 loans with them and are my biggest creditor)!!
But I received a few text and emails from them asking to contact them so thought I had better bite the bullet and just do it. Cant believe it I started blubbing down the phone , this is not like me at all :-( however the lady was quite nice and said they get phonecalls like this every day and will put account on hold for 30 days.
I'm starting to feel ashamed about all this again today, but know i'm taking the right steps, and this forum helps me a lot :-)

Hi this is my first post on here, I have very recently admired defeat and it brings me so much dread to come to terms with that I am about to start a dmp through stepchange. Before right bring sc I have read through all of this forum and I can not thank you all enough as it has made me realise I am not alone. I am still however very very scared of where to go from here and what the future will bring.. will I have baliffs st my door and people demanding money?
I have a lot of creditors and some are payday loans, I also have a loan with my jar and everyday lending and an overdraft facility with safety net credit, has any one dealt with any of these before? Have they been resonable?

I welcome any advice, I have just switched over all my essential bills to an account that I don’t owe any money to, do I cancel all the other “debt” payments that are due to come out? Also do I just not pay them anything and wait until the dmp kicks in? I have heard it’s best to contact them but I do have an awful lot!
Any advice is very welcomed as I’m worrrying myself so much I can’t sleep or eat.
Thank you