Stopping Payments to Stepchange and going it "alone"

[theoldrouge]

have you ceased payments?

[blondiegirl]

Hi, no, not yet. I'm trying to get the AP markers removed (have been succesful with one already) and then I intend to.

[theoldrouge]

these agreements are from 20 years ago

 

the chances of obtaining the original agreements /t&cs are next to zero

 

save yourself £45 per month

[blondiegirl]

Thanks for the reply.

 

The problem being though, they are reporting this as AR. If I stop/reduce payments, these markers will show for the rest of my life. So I need to try and get the markers removed as I have done already elsewhere. If/once this is done, I can stop the payments. I just can't see them agreeing to anything, if I suddenly stop payments.

[yesilgozlerim]

Barclaycard put AR/AP markers on for a credit card 8 years ago.

 

 

The account never actually defaulted

 

 

when i challenged this

 

 

Barclaycard told me these markers did not put me in a more disadvantaged place

rather than someone who made no effort to pay.

 

 

so i gave up.

[dx100uk]

AP markers never go away and can be seen for upto 6 yrs in the account history.

 

 

dx

[Dotty50]

What's AP/AR markers?

 

It's probably something obvious but I can't remember seeing this mentioned before.

 

It's been a while since I heard anything on a thread that I subscribed to on here!

[theoldrouge]

What's AP/AR markers?

 

It's probably something obvious but I can't remember seeing this mentioned before.

 

It's been a while since I heard anything on a thread that I subscribed to on here!

 

arrangement to pay

[blondiegirl]

These AP markers are so damaging.

 

 

For a debt which was run up in my 20's,

they can be reported on until nearing retirement.

Hardly fair when someone is trying to pay debts off rather than declare themselves bankrupt

and it means we can do nothing which requires any credit check (including never being able to move!!!!).

 

 

It is a load of rubbish to say that it shows a debtor is doing the responsible thing,

it may not affect credit etc which I have read about.

 

 

They are as bad as a DF, but stay for much longer.

 

 

Anyway, following a letter and subsequent phonecalls,

Barclaycard have removed them from my credit file they have gone!!!

 

 

So they can be removed, depending on who the OC is.

 

 

Barclaycard called me within 24 hours of receiving my letter;

on the other hand,

MBNA have written to say that they've assigned my complaint to someone

and hope to contact me again by mid-December.

Not such a great response.

[blondiegirl]

Barclaycard put AR/AP markers on for a credit card 8 years ago.

 

 

The account never actually defaulted

 

 

when i challenged this

 

 

Barclaycard told me these markers did not put me in a more disadvantaged place

rather than someone who made no effort to pay.

 

 

so i gave up.

 

Are the AP/AR markers still showing?

[Dotty50]

arrangement to pay

 

Thank you

[blondiegirl]

I have started to receive lots of paperwork following my SAR. Quick question! Although I'm not sure there's an actual answer. An awful lot of it is in 'code', different formats and abbreviated which would mean something to the OC but not to me. Any pointers as to where I should start looking and what I should do with all these reams of paper? Thanks.

[theoldrouge]

scan up sar narrative minus pers details and any interesting/ important docs

[blondiegirl]

Rather than go through rubbish Stepchange,

I intend to leave Stepchange and make payments to creditors ourselves.

 

 

But, will making these individual payments hinder our possible mortgage application in a few years??

 

If we start making eg, £1 payments to a creditor, these will show on our bank account.

 

 

If a mortgage provider scrutinises our account and sees payments like this to creditors, will it ring alarm bells/raise questions?

 

 

Some of these debts have vanished from our credit report and I was just hoping that they stay hidden.

 

Thank you for any advice offered

[citizenB]

By the time you apply for a mortgage, will these debts be repaid ?

 

At the present time, lenders are looking for at least 2-3 years with a good credit history before parting with any loans !

[blondiegirl]

Hi, thanks for the reply. No, these debts won't be paid off for a long time.

 

 

However, they're not all showing on our credit file.

I don't necessarily think we will want to borrow more,

we may have to accept renting a bigger house and changing our mortgage to a buy-to-let type loan

and rent our house out because I don't want to sell.

 

We got into this trouble in our 20's when we were living in a small house.

 

 

Now in our 40's with 2 kids in our small house, we need to move.

 

 

The only possible way we can do this, is to rent a larger house because I don't believe we'll get a bigger mortgage.

 

Thanks :0)

[citizenB]

Ah righto, well I don't actually see you having any problems coming away from stepchange.

 

If you have a lot of debts, then you will need to be organised - keep each "creditor/Debt" in a separate file. I designed a spread sheet for when I was dealing with ours in order to keep track of payments/letter sent/received etc. It made life a lot easier.

 

You will need an up to date statement for all your creditors from Step Change before you start dealing with your creditors. Then take it from there.

 

Have you done all the reclaiming of charges/ppi and checking the agreements, etc ?

[blondiegirl]

Hi, I have been attempting to sort our credit files out for a long time.

I assumed that if my bank looks at our account if we try and change the mortgage

and see payments to CCCS/OCs they will know about all the debts

(which aren't showing on our credit file).

 

I have posted on this site under separate debts and so far,

I have written to each creditor.

Some have agreed in writing that that the debts aren't enforceable (I intend to pay them £1 a month).

 

 

Some have sent copies of the signed agreement to me (MBNA).

I have sent SARs and have a mountain of paperwork for each account in reply.

 

I wrote to Barclaycard who actually agreed to remove my account on my credit file (yipee)

and I now have a battle with MBNA to do the same.

 

 

They have declined and report that each account is in arrears.

I have written to them to say that I actually have broken the arrangement with them (I couldn't afford what they stated I had to pay)

, which would place the account in DF.

 

 

I have also said that they can DF me after a time of being in arrears.

They'll be reporting on me being in arrears forever more which is not helping!!

 

I basically have to:

* post a copy of these signed agreements to my separate threads to see if they're enforceable;

* try and make sense of the jumbled coded info that they've sent following SARs;

* reply to MBNA to state that I disagree with the decision to not DF me

* write to the ICO about MBNA and the way in which they report me as being in arrears when I have broken the terms of the arrangement

 

It's so stressful lol!!

[citizenB]

MBNA are probably one of the worse for not reporting to credit files - I think whilst you are paying them even £1.00 they will continue in this manner. It makes a mockery of the system IMHO.

[blondiegirl]

Well, if by some miracle, I can get our credit reports changed like I did with Barclaycard, does anyone know if a mortgage provider will scrutinises a bank account and see payments like this to creditors/CCCS, will it ring alarm bells/raise questions?

 

Or is it better to pay them through a bank even if it's a hassle so that it disappears from our bank account as some of the debts have from our credit reports?

[Wintry]

Hi BlondieGirl

 

Information below from Citizens Advice CABmoney on self administering your own debt management plan (including changing from a provider)

 

https://nedcab.cabmoney.org.uk/dmp.asp

 

http://cabmoney.org.uk/

 

Administering your own DMP is becoming much easier and accessible for those who wish and feel confident enough to manage their own plans or have little other choice

 

Creditors should treat you the same if you self-manage or go with a provider with the FCA treating customers fairly initiative (TCF) now coming into play also

 

http://www.fca.org.uk/static/documents/consumer-credit-being-regulated-guide.pdf

 

Hope this helps some

 

Best Wishes

 

W

[blondiegirl]

Hi W, thanks. We've been on a plan for over 6 years so I know how to do it :0)

 

I am trying to find out if it will harm us if our bank account shows (albeit small) payments to credit card companies/DCAs (as opposed to a monthly payment to Stepchange) if we were trying to change a mortgage. Most of the debts have now dropped off our credit report so a mortgage provider won't see them. I'm not sure if they'll question every entry on a bank statement hence my question.

[theoldrouge]

get yourself an additional basic bank ac and make the payments from there just to be cautious

 

certain companies offer bTL mortgages with little/no scrutiny

 

they are basically a business loan, subject to LTV and rental assessment

[blondiegirl]

Thank you theoldrouge. I will sort out a basic a/c somewhere and pay some cash into it.

 

I haven't looked into btl mortgages in any great detail so that's good to know we may be eligible for one. The ltv would be pretty good because we now have quite a lot of equity and renting it out wouldn't be a problem either. The future might be looking up after all lol (except for the flippin arrears markers with MBNA)