And that's exactly what we did. The only issue was that we couldnt get that consent until we had a buyer because the forms required detailed info re the buyer, their solicitor etc- stuff we couldnt get until we had a firm offer in place.

I dont know if you managed to get this sorted but i thought i would tell you my personal experience. I cannot give you advice but this is what happened to us: We had a mortgage with NR with massive arrears and also a secured loan on the property resulting in negative equity. we moved to a rented property before our credit rating went too low for us to be able to pass a credit check with landlords. We managed to sell the house on open market and got good value but still had shortfall of about 25K. The funds were distributed as follows: 1. solicitors fees 2. estate agent fees 3. NR 4. remainder went to secured loan who had to put in writing they agree to the sale to go ahead and they allow us to pay the rest of the shortfall by monthly instalments based on what we can afford. Its been 18 months since then and we pay regularly what we agreed and havent heard from the company since. it will take ages to clear the debt but once the default they registered with credit reference agencies get removed after 6 years, our credit rating will go back up again. So there is light at the end of the tunel. The whole sale process was the same as normal non shortfall sale, it only got very complicated at the end when all agreements between the solicitors and the secured loan company had to be done to tight deadlines and be worded in a specific way. Hope this helped a little bit.

The more I read your comments, the more I am starting to believe that I should get this sorted. God knows really how much of the balance i owe is actually payable. You are spot on, the banks lend you money left right and centre when you are paying back- even if its a minimum payment every month but as soon as things go pearshaped i.e due to loss of job, they are so unhelpful and they start adding late payment fees at stupid rates- which really just makes the situation worse. Thank you all for your advice and moral support.

Thank you. You do have a point I will let you know what happens.

Thank you for the advice- I stupidly always deal with them on the phone. Lesson learnt

I havent got any of the original statements anymore as I have been dealing with DCA's not the original creditor for the last 2 years or so. My bad, i should have kept them but SAR will sort that bit out. Thanks again.

Thank you all for all your advice. I will get the SAR and CCA sorted to start with and see what happens. When ( and if) i get any replies from the DCA's I will very likely need your expertise as to what the best course of action to take is. In a way I do feel a bit guilty doing this because I know that I owe the money and it needs to be paid back.

Thank you for your replies. I cannot remember if there was any PPI taken on the loans but I think they charged PPI on CC's automatically. If i wanted to reclaim these, how would i do that? Do i just write to the relevant creditor to tell them that i want to reclaim these charges?

The reduced payments ( anything from £1.00 to £10.00 pm) are payments I have offered based on my Income and Expenditure. They have been in place for 2 years or so and during regular reviews of the accounts the DCA's asked me to increase them. Some of them increased by £2 - £3 pm some stayed the same depending how pushy the DCA was.

Hi, I am very new to this forum so I hope this is not a completely daft question. I have a number of debts ( CC's, personal loan, catalogs, store cards- all spiralled out of control due to sudden unemployment) - most of these are now with DCA's. I have come to reduced payment arrangements with all these DCA's. All have issued defaults about 2-3 years ago but none threatened court action as I honour the arrangements. Some of these debts have been assigned to 2 or three agencies already and in fairness I have lost track a bit what debt is what and how much each debt actually is. Is it worth asking for CCA and full statement of each account or would that just make the situation worse? If the DCA's are then unable to produce CCA, do i still carry on paying them the reduced payments? Thanks very much for your help.