Advice needed please!

[stone101]

finally woken up and registered here after reading some of the useful advice you guys have given to other people..

 

where to begin?

 

I am self employed with my own business (mortgage, wife and 2 kids) and because of the mess i have got myself into financially i am working over 70 hours a week just to break even .

We have 8 credit cards with nearly 60k on them and our minimum payments are £1400 a month

We have 3 loans (1 is a car loan) with monthly payments totaling £1200

We have an interest only mortgage which due to the interest rate is only £380 a month.

Monthly outgoings for other stuff (council tax, quarterly bills, insurances,petrol and food etc) is £1750 a month

 

i have been taking money from my business on top of our wages to cover our outgoings and now the business is suffering because of it. Been getting away with it for a few years because business was thriving but since last year business is scarce and i am having to work my behind off just to get anywhere need the wages we need to keep everything paid....as a result i am getting in trouble with unpaid bills for my shop and my marriage is starting to suffer, today my wife had to go to doctors because of anxiety attacks and depression.

 

never missed any payments on anything but it has got harder and harder and cant see how i am going to get through the next couple of months never mind long term

 

so i come to you for advice :?

 

is it possible to have some kind of debt management plan just on my credit cards? or would i need to include the loans as well? is there a company that i can trust to help me?

 

would an IVA be a better choice for me in my situation?

 

please help because for once in my life i truly feel i have reached a dead end with no way out.

 

 

Mark

[foolishgirl]

Hi stone

 

Before you go down the debt management/IVA route, you really need to assess each debt on its own merits but the place to start is with a request for your credit agreement under S77/78 of the CCA1974. It cost £1.00 each & should be sent to the registerd office of each creditor if you do not have the correct contact/customer services address. Send a PO (not cheques) & do not sign the letter (print or use dig. sig to avoid a copy/paste exercise ). Send Rec. Del. They have 12+2 days to comply.

The letter template is here:

http://www.consumerforums.com/resources/templates-library/86-debt-collectors/581-cca-request-letter

 

If you think unlawful charges (overlimit, late payment) may have been applied to the accounts & you do not have the statements, send a SAR (cost £10) in the same way. They have 40 days to respond. Template here:

http://www.consumerforums.com/resources/templates-library/86-debt-collectors/576-subject-access-request-debt-a-dca

 

If you have further queries eg. is your agreement enforceable post your question in the forum appropriate to each creditor eg. Barclaycard for BC debts etc. & you will get advice from experienced CAGers.

 

It is easy to become overwhelmed but just take one small step at a time & believe me, you will progress & in the process, become empowered & self confident again.

Edited November 25, 2009 by foolishgirl
addition

[diamondgirl]

Hi

 

I would certainly start of the way FG has suggested. Get your CCAs, start your separate threads and post put your agreements as and when you receive them minus your personal info so they can be checked out to see if they are enforceable.

 

DG

[foolishgirl]

PS. Forgot to add - do not talk to your creditors on the phone, keep it all in writing. It is too easy to get confused & agree to the rubbish they spout on the phone plus, once they have your number, they will plague the life out of you. If they are already bothering you, just refuse to complete the security questions & send them the 'harassment' letter from the templates library.

[loobyloo85]

is it possible to have some kind of debt management plan just on my credit cards? or would i need to include the loans as well? is there a company that i can trust to help me?

 

would an IVA be a better choice for me in my situation?

Hi

 

As long as you have at least 2 debts, you can apply for a debt management plan. It does not matter whether they are credit cards or loans.

An IVA is an option available to you, where you can make a monthly payment into this for 5 years and after this period, the remainder of your debt is written off. Payplan carry out free of charge IVAs unlike other companies, so may be worth looking into.

In an IVA, if you have over £5K equity, you will be expected to remortgage in the 4th year to release 85% loan to value of this, your share, and pay in on top of your payments. This is a clause in your IVA. In bankruptcy, you could lose your home. In an IVA all assets are protected, but they just require you to release a % of equity, if you have any.

If you dont, you dont have to pay anything in. and if you cannot remortgage for whatever reason to release the funds, as long as you provide evidence of this, you can offer to make payments in leiu of this equity on the end of your IVA.

[stone101]

thanks for the advice, i have decided to contact the CCCS and see if i qualify for a DMP. Does anyone know whether there is a minimum payment that must be made to a credit card company while on a DMP? i have quite a few cards and am wondering whether they will be satisfied with sharing my leftover income after essentials are paid.

 

thanks

 

Mark

[foolishgirl]

i have quite a few cards and am wondering whether they will be satisfied with sharing my leftover income after essentials are paid.

 

 

They don't have much choice!

[diamondgirl]

As FG said they don't have much choice but they do tend to accept these lower payment when they have been done through someone like CCCS. I reduced my payments from what I was originally paying through CCCS when I ended up with a lower paid job some months ago and not one of them have refused or complained about it.

 

DG

[stone101]

thanks for help. I called CCCS and will be speaking with one of their counselors next week.....really hope they can help me and relieve some of the pressure my wife and i are feeling

[loobyloo85]

Thats good to hear, I wish you all the best x

[stone101]

k i have had my contact with CCCS and now am needing some more advice if possible. They have emailed me a pack with DMP details etc but they recommend i speak to someone regarding an IVA first, they do in-house IVA's but said as i was self employed they will pass my details onto a third party company they use all the time (Grand Thornton?). He went into the basics of an IVA and said i would need to release equity in my property at the 4th year point. I am pretty sure i have hardly any equity at the moment (maybe 5 - 10k) and am also pretty sure i would have a hard time remortgaging with my income and the fact i am self employed (my current mortgage was hard to get and that was self certified which i believe they dont do anymore? ). Other than that an IVA did sound better for me as i would be out of debt after 6 years compared to a lot longer while paying a DMP. So....whats the catch? whats the disadvantages of an IVA compared to a DMP? Also they said a sticking point for both iva and dmp was our car which we are paying on Hire Purchase and i included as an essential, the creditors wouldnt be to impressed with me paying a higher amount for my car monthly than what i am paying overall towards my debts. We use the car to get to and from work and also to make deliverys and i wonder whether it is possible to put the car finance through the business and lower my drawings to compensate? is that just a case of moving the direct debit across to my business bank account and informing the accountant? the hire purchase is currently in our names jointly and we are also joint business partners. My wife is suffering from stress and anxiety so you guys are actually the only ones i can talk to regarding any of this and relying on your advice too....thanks:)

 

sorry if it doesnt make to much sense, i am at work and need to see to customers at same time

 

thanks

[Melody2b]

Hi there

my husband started this thread a couple of weeks ago before he contacted the cccs. I havent been feeling up to dealing with our financial problems up to now so he suggested i read a few threads on this site to get an idea of how much help is available to people like us who seem to have messed up very badly. I have to admit i do feel a little better after reading so many helpfull posts by people only to willing to help. I have got a couple of questions if there is someone out there able to answer? We are trying to set up an IVA with the company the cccs reccomended to us but so far havent managed to contact them directly (they left a message on our answerphone while we were at work, we called back but they was unavailable so we left a message ) . We wont have the money this month to pay the cc bills or loans completely so have decided to pay each of the cc £30 or £40 which is well below their minimum payments. I am going to the bank on Monday morning to cancel the direct debits. What is the best way to pay the cc once i cancel the dd's ? should i just use the pay in slips that come with the statements? or should i pay them by cheque directly? the cccs suggested i send them a letter explaining our financial position and qoute the client ref number they gave us, is their the correct template for this letter available on this site?

Also, we bank with Barclays but 3 of our cc's and one of our loans is from Barclays so i assume we need to change banks and move our mortgage DD over to the new account. We went to Nat West yesterday to set up a new account and was amazed at the questions we had to answer (value of house? car? icome?), we was there for over an hour only for them to tell us the account has been "reffered" and they will let us know the outcome. We dont want to borrow any money or set up an overdraft so why would they need to credit check us? Nat west we found out is a subsidiary of the RBS and seeing as 2 of our cc's are with them we wonder whether that also may be a problem?????

I guess we should let Barclays know what is happening otherwise they will just continue taking the Barclayloan and Barclaycard payments from our account and charging us for going over our overdraft? should i use the same letter that i am sending to the CC companys? sorry for needing so much help .

My head is spinning and i find it all so overwhelming . I think if it was up to me i would stay in bed all day with the covers over my head but my husband insists i get up and face the problems (he also needs the help as he works for long hours, so it is up to me to do the letter writing)

 

thank you to anyone that can help me with these letters and questionsi i have

 

Melody

[Mr Worried]

Hi Melody

 

You really need to start your own thread for this asap, as you will receive loads of help and advice.

 

Mr W