my mother took out a bank loan 3 years ago with her partner. more that £7000 but less than 25000 the loan was in her name however he paid money via direct debit every month into her account to help pay it off. he died last christmas leaving her with the full loan amount, i have tried to get her to speak to citizens advise or make some arrangement however its been a tough year for her and she tends to burry her head in the sand when it comes to financial issues. she has paid and is still paying alot of interest an charges on this loan and is now not able to keep up with paymens even though the amount has been reduced by the bank. My mother is no longer fit to work and now lives on disability living allowance, the only thing she owns is our home and obviously we dont want to loose it! can anyone adivise me how i can help her?

Hi Everyone im very new to all of this so apologies up front. are the companies which reclaim bank charges for you any good or do they take alot of the money themselves? i have already put in a claim for bank charges but nothing has been refunded! if they refunded all the charges it would clear my student overdraft! i also had two credit cards which i paid back 4 or 5 times its value in charges. these are no longer active, i paid them off about 4 months ago but would love to get some of the charges back. is this possible? i am in financial difficulty to say the least. is there a simple way for me to do this or should i use an agency to do it for me? any advice would be greatly apreciated. Ali