I would like to avoid the DRO and BR of I can at the min We have a car more then the value a DRO states. Nothing special it's an 07 plate Xsara Picasso with 64k milage £3,400 nearly 3 years we have had it now and it's the one thing we need. To get our daughter to nursery and to get to her parents house as her mum has dementia so it gives her dad a break taking her out. also for hospital appiontments plus her dad has his own medical problems etc. We got ripped off a few years before that with a car we bought and put a couple of grand back into trying to fix it which was the start of the debts. this car has been the best thing since we bought it with no problems. plus we have mobile contracts £20 a month each we use these more than we ever use the land line they would be factored into the DRO as a debt. The only additional income we have is my wife as a student gets student loans of 2.2k every 4 month other than books, car parking charges for study she helps pay towards the bills. hence the fact we have just about managed to stay floating. Stepchange said because this wasn't a relaible income and used mainly for Uni and couldn't account for expenditure they took into account £250 a month of that for payment towards the bills. which puts us + £47 a month income after everything is paid out. This can go towards the DMP reducing it from £269 a month to £47 just till around September next year when wife should be working earning 26k a year. So I just need to get through the next 12 months really

I phoned Stepchange yesterday. They need my income to be at least £30 to keep the DMP going which I have now done, they also said I need to write to all the creditors again asking them to stop charges and interest as they don't have to but it would be in their best interest as they confirmed on the phone they have all been charging interest over the last year putting my debt from £23k starting point which I took it down to 20k and it is now back to 24k

I should have the SAR come through soon I got a letter from them last week to say it was being looked into as I requested CD format and some written letters that can't be put on CD However I spoke with CMS today about arrears which they have agreed a payment plan to be looked at again in 3 months time of £30 a month to clear a debt of £11,882 They weren't happy with the low payment for the large amount of debt I have had to explain as you might have seen on another thread I am in finacial difficulty at the moment told the woman on the phone that even in 3 months it won't have changed out she wasnt too bothered said my case worker will deal with it. What did annoy me was - CSA have left a note on my file that says they have been trying to contact me for 6 months to inform me about the arrears. I said to the lady on the phone that the only letter I got from them was in April'sh time that my account was moving over to CMS I got a reminder later in the year again to inform me the same again. that there was no mention of arrears or that my payments were wrong. I then went on to say to her that if they knew back in April that there was arrears why didn't they say anything, why didn't they write to me or call me and why is it there was a DEO on my wage this was never altered can you explain the first person I spoke to in september told me that the error was on your side. that the computer or persons that dealt with my account never sent letters out every year to me or to my ex in more than 8 years. I also said when it dropped to £20 a month nobody did anything about it and 2 people I have now spoken to at CSA have told me that it is 100% your fault and apologised for it and these calls are recorded. I also said that if 6 months or more they had been trying to contact me about the arrears where is the letters? they wrote to me about CMS So they have the correct address? She then said well this is CMS so we don't have that information only bits on the system I have seen you have a SAR gone through so it should be clear in that. she didnt want to know. Should I contact my MP at this point once the SAR info has come through? or leave it and if they get funny over payments go to them then?

As it looks at the moment I have only paid back £60 in total over the last year across all. I will be contacting Stepchange on Monday anyway as my circumstancies have changed and I can no longer pay the requested amount set out a year ago of £269 a month. But if it is the case and some are still charging interest then 3k has just been added back onto my account.

Just wondering if I do a CCA request what will this confirm? as most of the debts are still with the original creditors apart from Natwest who have passed this onto Westcot so I know the debts are mine? What does this mean? ignore them and don't pay? or wait till they pass it onto someone more legit?

I just dug out the Natwest statement the debt was bought by Cabot Financial (UK) it goes onto say Wescot services will continue to manage the account Would it be worth stopping my DD with stepchange as it seems not all my creditors have defaulted me so they don't get any payments then start up a new plan with stepchange once they have all defaulted as least interest will have stopped? I will of course need to speak with stepchange first about this.

I will call them on Monday, tried to call them on Friday and they were supposed to call me back this was an hour before closing but this never happened. So some of my old halifax statements I've shredded but I've got one from August this year which shows I made the usual payment of £21.14 However they charged me £28.64 interest and estimated the month after interest would be £28.72. The letter I have for November statetes interest at £0 for the month after hopefully like you said Stepchange can clear this up. I also got a letter from Halifax (who are ringing me about 40 times a week) Number blocked on the 31/7/2017 The consumer credit act requires them to write to me. They said 2 payments were due in July of around £44 each I pay £21.14 through stepchange and made 2 payments June and july They said there is an arreas notice of £46.88 underlined is this Default sums and interest You may have to pay default sums and interst in relation to the missed or partly made payments It's strange as I wrote the same letters to all the companies involved to say I could no longer keep payments up and I was now with stepchange. Some were being funny "who are stepchange" even though the letters they sent regarding payments directed me to them. I'm wondering if the likes of Capital one and Halifax haven't put me into default and just kept interest going? I can access both my accounts still with them will have a look. I might write to both again depending on what stepchange say on monday. Also Zopa when I log onto my account shows that just over 14k needs to be paid back. However I have letter that states there was a default notice issued on the 31/05/17 and notes that I could have remedied the default which on the 19th June has expired (balance 15k) (rebate 2.9k) (amount to pay 12.1k) The rebate was calculated that payment was made in full by the 26th June 17 or they shall bring proceedings against me despite me paying them through stepchange since 2016 the letter even directs me to stepchange. So now I know why the debt has risen to 14k they have put the rebate back on or interest as I see it. Seems I've let it laps over the last year going to have to get ontop of these companies now from Monday.

Stepchange and even on their website says that creditors don't have to stop interest although it is in their interests to do so. But the amounts stepchange have are the amounts I told them when I defaulted with my creditors. stepchange never spoke to them direct. However they did request copies of statements from them from me so they had an upto date balance of what the amount was at the time (December 16) It doesn't say and never has on my Halifax statement we have stopped interest while you have defaulted failure to pay to the agreed plan with stepchange will result in a years worth of interest being added onto my account or even 5 years worth of interest as my account currently shows 2025 as the finish date but this will change now due to my circumstancies now. Here is what the statement says Previous balance £1,729 Payment recieved £21.14 New transactions, fees and charges £27.09 Your new balance £1735.84 Min payment due inc missed payments £166.70 The only thing it says at the top of the statement is (next months estimated insterest £0.00) So what is the £1,735 on my new balance? it doesn't reflect my balance on the account at the time I defualted which I have made payments since (so other than stepchange original amount I gave them my halifax account look like I owe £1,735? they are not showing the balance going down. Also on the Halifax letter it says at the back is says. 06 November interest £27.09 and further down it says Total amount you paid (7 Nov 2016 - 6 Nov 2017) £232.54 Interest charged on your credit card (7 Nov 2016 - 6 Nov 2017) £169.33 So as I said unless this is just for information purposes their so be it but it doesn't say that on the letter it's show my balance with them as going up not down

Just want to correct above it was 1 year paying with stepchange not 2. I took the Credit Cards at different stages over the last 5 years I was trying to balance payments out with the 0% deals ended up using them (some stupidly) thinking I could deal with it. Barclay card made a mistake by not charging me enough on the min payment which was £30 at the time and informed me it was meant to be £80 a month. Eventually wife lost her job which is why we ended up in this mess. Zopa loan for 13k started July 2015 I started making payments to Stepchange December 2016 although looking at the account the loan started at the interest point of 19k and being coming down from that. can that be classed as adding interest still?

Actually Natwest have passed the debt to someone else but offered to forward the payments on which I need to change this with stepchange. can't remember who it was without checking (think it was westcot) All debts other than the natwest one are still with the original creditor. Some accounts I can still access others I can't. What do you mean by take out date? the date I fell into debt and started payments with stepchange?

I've just seen a post from a guy on here who was (150k in debt) now 70k in debt. Something like this myself started paying through stepchange at £269 a month for just over 2 years now for 23k work of debts. total paid to date is £2,959.00 which brings my account to £20,510.58 My debts are with. Halifax (Credit card) Capital one (credit card) Barclay card (credit card) Tesco (credit card) Natwest (credit card) Zopa P2P lending (Loan) (13.5k loan, 19k with interest) However I've been going through some of my old statements and a recent one today from Halifax who send them very sporadic and I noticed which I thought was stopped interest wasn't so for 2 years they have been keeping the interest going at about £28 a month while my stepchange payment plan with them is about £21 a month after all this time my account with them should have been £1,460 however I checked today and it stands at around £1,780 I've not actually paid anything off. They aren't the only ones Zopa had my debt at about 13k down to about 11k now but they have been keeping the interest on my debt with them stands at 14k now even though the original letter after a defaulted said the debt was 13k and never mentioned the interest. Now my finance has changed I can't afford the original payments as the debt calculator on stepchange now puts me at minus £284 a month. What do I do at this point? Do I do what the other guy did and get letters sent off to them and what should I expect if I stop paying stepchange by DD and only offer creditors about £1 a month each? Capital one is also keeping interest going. after 2 years of paying and looking at all my accounts again today my debt stands at £23,657.14

I spoke to CSA today and wages yesterday. They have the SAR request. they took 3 payments between Jan-mar 2009 £241, £131 and £131 (as confirmed from my wages department) There was then an order put in to drop it down to £21 a month and then from Jan 10 the (same order was then dropped to £20 a month) which my wages said a CSA request was put in for. The CSA lady said she couldn't understand or find anything on the computer that suggests why it did that she's never seen anything like it and has no explanation for it. She said even the yearly statements I am supposed to get or any other letters haven't gone out either to me or my ex so the last time they spoke to her was 2006 until it went to CMS this year which she called them to ask about it. I said but I've never changed jobs and even though me and my ex have never spoken since splitting she knows I work so why hasn't she contacted you when her payments went down to £20 a month. (she did say that they have had suggestions from other cases where they've suspected the ex has been financially ok and let arrears run up deliberately knowing and then chasing them up years down the line for whatever means) She did say not that it's a reason not to pay for kids but it's actually proving it and there hasn't ever been a case tested for it. They said the only time they spoke to my ex as CSA was when they went to close the case and they calculated the arrears and asked if she wanted them paying back. Which she said yes. They said to me on the phone in this instance although it is going to CMS (the arrears) I can pay back what I want at a rate I can afford and will leave a note on the file. So what do I do at this point? all they can send me from the SAR request is the original court document which I have and a list of statements which I don't need as I can back date all my wage slips to show payments are wrong.

Just bumping this thread up. Decided to wait for CMS to contact me and a payment plan via Direct Pay is getting setup. Today CSA wrote to me and as expected there are arrears of £11,500 (less than I thought it would be) as some that have replied to this thread you'll know that I contacted wages when CMS wrote to me and I found out they hadn't been paying enough CSA despite the letter CSA wrote to them with the amount through DEO. I am going to now do the SAR as I have 14 days to contact CSA before they hand it over to CMS. How do you think I am best approaching this with them? Financially I can't afford to pay 40% of my wage if they take me down to £519 a month as my wife is not currently working and have a small child to support in this relationship. My rent is £355 a month and council tax is £97. It will leave me with nothing to pay the bills or buy food. I know £11,500 I can't pay over 2 years and I know they can be flexable (I'm currently paying debts off 6 companies in total) £269 a month I could lower the price down to £30 a month £5 each per month and offer the £269 a month towards the arrears. By september next year my wife should be working as she is teacher training at the minute through Uni hence her not working. I know they probably wont cancel the arrears but I will ask. If they won't could I argue because they made a mistake and nobody has followed it up for 10 years (wages, CSA or my ex) that I could have a longer extention on the arrears payments because they have put me in financial hardship? When would be the best time to ask CAB for help and my MP? should I wait for the SAR to come back? Would CMS expect payments to be made for Arrears while it's been investigated till we can come to an arrangement? Thanks in advance

The only time I had to deal with CSA was when I started working again in 2007 and I followed everyones advice to deal with them in writing which they didn't like at the time. I also wanted to pay by standing order which they refused eventually giving in and payments started everymonth. This lasted for about 4 months then I got a letter through the post to say they had gone to court for a deducation of earnings order which would be £30 a week. So I stopped the standing order as there was no mention to stop this either "communication or what" and it was left at that I just assumed it was coming off my wage before I got paid. I also had a debt that I agreed to pay through my wages to a credit card I had when I split with ex which was set at £20.61 but only started taking £20 and was supposed to be reviewed after 5 years this started in the first month I got the letter from CSA that it was coming out of my wage. In April this year wages department changed their payslips and it went from saying £20 debt to £20 court order I didn't pay much attention too it as just assumed it was how it was worded for them. I decided to check clear score this year to see how these debts had gone onto my credit score and noticed the Debt I had agreed to pay for the CC wasn't showing on my credit score. I went on holiday a few days after this and came back to a letter from CSA to say in September I was changing to CMS. The booklet that came with it sounded a bit confusing because they said it would stop in September and I would need to agree to pay my ex direct but we don't have any communication hence the order on my wages so I rang wages to check if they knew what might happen and checked on the debt as well to find the debt I was paying they didn't know anything about and the £20 a month was CSA payments. I nearly died when she told me but she couldn't answer any questions relating too it and suggested I contact them as they can only go on what they have been told to pay. from 2007 to 2013 I never had any further communication from CSA and I wrote to them in 2013 to give them my new address detials. Still no further communication from them until I got the letter this year to say I was changing to CMS. I've never changed jobs. But I'm confused as to why they haven't chased it up £5 a week child support from a working person and I've not spoken to my ex or seen my daughter for 14 years I don't even know why my ex has never chased it up. I'm worried now should I wait till it changes to CMS first?

Looking for some advice. Been paying CSA through a deducations order set at £30 a week as stated In their letter as of 2007 I assumed that any wage changes would adjust with payroll so forgot about it and carried on. I have also been paying another none CSA related debt that I assumed had started coming off my wage about the same time for £20 a month. On my wage outgoings were down as £20 debt. I called my wages department as had a letter come through the post about 4 weeks ago to say I was changing from CSA to CMS in September and was there anything I needed to do and they said they would probably contact them shortly before or after that date but I was best to contact them. While she was on the phone I asked them to check the £20 debt as £6000 was owing and I wanted to double check how much had come off. She came back to me and said there wasn't any debts and the £20 a month was the CSA court order. I said to the women on the phone back in 2007 they said they were taking £30 a week. They said they can only go on what they have been told to pay and it usually adjusts per year based on salary increases what they pay out as CSA usually contact them. She was as confused as me as to why it never changed. she suggested I contact CSA to find out. So far I have left it as I don't know what to do. CSA have never contacted me since they first wrote to me in 2007 telling me what my deductions of earning orders were and then 4 weeks ago to tell me it was changing to CMS. I've looked at the what the debt could be based on my earnings and it could be anywhere from 18k-21k. I earn £1300 a month, my wife lost her job last year and we have no other income other than my wage to live off by the time I have paid Rent, Bills, Council tax and £269 a month to a load of debts when wife lost her job it leaves me with about £150 a month for food for a family of 4, 3 adults 1 at uni full time and a 3 year old. I don't know what the hell to do and scared they'll take everything out of the house or we'll lose the house because I can't pay the rent. if they take nearly all my wage of me. I thought it was coming off my wage before I got paid, I don't understand why CSA have never written to me as soon as they saw the wrong amounts were being paid. I've seen the horror stories in threads below this one. I;ve even read they can send you to prison?

Car has been playing up at junctions usually slowing down and touching the clutch causing it to stall a couple of times then it purrs like a kitten. Has been doing this on and off for a while. Wife is a member of the xsara picasso club and they have suggested Idle control valve which even google suggests its that based off others with similar problems. We went to a couple of garages who have given prices ranging from £140 - £240 the most expensive being the main dealer but they wanted to do a diagnostic on the car because they didn't want to do the work just because we said what the fault was. Just wondering if anyone else has had it replaced and what the cost should be most guys on the xsara picasso club say it's a 5 mins job to replace it?

I know this is only small change but we went on holiday in August and put a £50 deposit down on a caravan (private owned) this was to cover costs of any damage refundable upon return home as long as there wasn't any damage. It was forgotton about till I mentioned it to the wife in late October she checked her bank and noticed it hadn't been paid back so she text the women who was away on holiday out of the country till early December and said she would check herself when she got back. We got a text message on the 17th December apologising saying she had checked and noticed she hadn't given it back and asked for bank details to refund back. heard nothing for a week then got another text to say sorry she had been working and it had been busy she would sort it over the weekend. Its still not turned up nearly 2 weeks later so my wife text her again yesterday and her text has gone ignored. Just wondering at this point if it was worth taking the matter further?

Thanks for giving me the info. To make it clear going back to the £80 when my wife first called at the start of all this they said they would look into why this was owed. This never happened of course but she did find out that she couldn't have paid the £80 anyway it was just for information purposes as this would have been paid through her tax/national insurance number but because she has stopped working and claiming JSA it apparently got lost in the system. She then started working again 4 months later for the same employer but the letter they sent at the start of all this said that the £80 was too small amount to attach onto her wage. It was then a year later that these self employment letters started turning up. The guy on the phone apologised over the blunders and misinformation we have been given along the way. But when wife told him she is a full time student now as of September he said well that's a bit of a mix up then as like he said the £80 can only be paid through a national insurance number. so the only thing he suggested as we are doing now is going through the appeals process and put 2 seperate ones in.

Thanks for getting back to me. I'm not sticking my head in the sand it's trying to understand. I've said I can't fill in the old notifications as thrown them away the only ones I have is the tax reminder for 2016 that is all. However my wife has called them today. They are sending her a form of her employment history that covers the periods they have asked for and she needs to register online for self assessment as well which a pin code will come through the post. she then has to put an appeal in online with the forms filled in but 2011/2012 will be a bit harder he said as she was claiming JSA for 4 months so will need to contact the benefits office to get some info from them. He said they recieved the appeal letter but because the forms weren't filled out and she wasn't sent her employment history they would have just ignored it which is why it hasn't been stopped. he has suggested a 2nd appeal goes in with the first seperate because he could see the last person she spoke over a year ago hasn't given her all the information that was needed. The guy on the phone said it was put to self assessment because there was no national insurance number to link the £80 to but not sure why they couldn't link it to her name. Fredrickson who have taken the debt on was informed of the error from HMRC but at the moment they aren't bothered it was a pay up or we take it further as they said it was a substantial amount of money.

The old ones have been thrown out the only ones left are ones sent to us in May 2016. Is this going to prove a problem like you only get one P60 or can we just send off the May 2016 one and it will cover the other years? The guy on the phone who we spoke to over a year ago didn't say anything about filling them out and sending them back he said to just appeal which we did and when they realise it was a mistake it should get wiped but this doesn't appeared to have happened and havn't heard anything back from the appeal. Surely they can't hold us to 4.3k for being self employed when it was put on that by accident when it should never have been put their in the first place? Will hopefully have it sorted this week if not perhaps we need to seek some legal advice on it

My wife works in a school she doesn't need a uniform she just got a letter one day to say she had underpaid tax by £80. She has never had any other job other than working in a school. The only thing I can think of is that she lost her first job and between losing her job and the appeal I think it took around 3 months they decided to offer her back pay for those 3 months and the £80 I can only assume has come from this. she was out of work for 2 months then started working again in a school for the same employer. The guy on the phone said the person that had dealt with it had transfered the £80 to self assessment but doesn't know why they did that as shouldn't have done so suggested to the wife that she appeals which she did but it seems to have gone ignored.. I suppose the only thing to do is contact HMRC and go through it with them again.

The original amount was £80 They have put £300 charges on per year for each year they have been late sending the tax reforms but which seems to have amounted to 4.3k but not even sure how it has amounted to that. Wife is going to give HMRC another call to try and clear it up. Not sure what proof HMRC want they just need to contact Leeds City Council who can confirm her employment status since 2012 From what I can gather from others on here my wife should have appealed online but she doesn't appear to have been offered that or they haven't give the correct info. Appreciate the advice though Just to add if there has been a short fall of tax paid from the employer who is liable my wife or them?

I've read a couple of posts about HMRC writing to people about underpayment on tax from employers, My wife has been working for Leeds City Council for 15 years she left one job and moved to another (2012) as working in a school so didn't take a break from the her employers. about a year later (2013) she received a letter to say there had been an underpayment of tax for £80. She contacted HMRC explained and they said they would look into this. We never heard anymore. Till 2014 when a 2 tax self assessment forms for 2012/2013 came through the post she wasn't sure what it was and neither did I so just ignored it thinking it was sent in error. Come 2015 3 seperate letters came through the post again it was the self assessment forms one for 2012 and one for 2013 with a reminder for 2014 will need to be paid as well. there was also a £600 fine for late payment in 2012/13. So we just ignored them as wife was working never been self employed. then towards the start of 2015 we got letters come through post to say there was a £900 fine for failure to send our forms back for 2012/13/14. So wife spent the best part for 1hr 30mins on the phone to get through to someone to say that she had called them years ago and it was being looked into. "he wanted the persons name we spoke to" wife was like really? it was 3 years ago and other than these letters coming through we stupidly though was a mistake turns out to be real. The guy on the phone said it looks like when wife called the person had past it onto someone and they had put her down as being self employed. So he said she would now need to register for self employment and then write a letter of appeal to which she did. This was over a year ago and the guy said at the time inbetween you doing this and them looking into it you might still get letters filtering through. So we got the odd letter of reminder and then it stopped. 8 months later OCT 2016 my wife recieved a letter from Fredrickson for the sum of £4397.21 All this for £80. So I called them up this was the first letter last week but they wouldn't deal with me all he would tell me was that they are an independant dept compny not part of HMRC's internal collection and that it doesn't matter at this stage if she didn't owe the money or not they have bought the debt off HMRC and we have to pay it now or they'll take our goods to pay it back and suggest wife calls with a payment. So wife tried to call HMRC yesterday and was on hold for 1hr 40 mins they answered the call then it went dead. Now recieved another letter today stating that their next step if we don't pay will be to take enforcement action. Any idea what we should do at this point as wife has always worked so never been self employed I'm not paying 4k out when she has payed her tax through her wages.

Would just like to update this post. After wife had her meeting with HR on the 18th April all recorded with her Union rep they wrote to her and told her that they were going to take it to a disciplinary and she had been waiting while they did a full investigation hence me writing now. After the pack came through last week it didn't go so well for her as follows. The latest- it turns out that the Admin officer had confirmed she had been altering times and had informed the head teacher she has been doing this she also confirmed she had done this to other members of staff she had noted had written the wrong time in to the time she checked with on her computer. It was also noted that when wife was given a management instruction the HT knew about these times he had failed to take action at this time and wasn't mentioned in the management instruction. It was also noted that they said wife was still late after they corrected the clock that she was using to sign in with but then later back tracked to say the clock was never wrong as it was synced by satellite. They also noted that the days and times were not correct on the days she said she was late they were accusing her off it was also noted that 2 days she was late after they had corrected the clock were snow days making 1/4 of the school staff late over those 2 days but the HT said she was making it up over those 2 days and there wasn't any snow. despite showing proof that there was. they decided to drop the lates. For her Uni work there was no proof that she was attending Uni on the out of semester days it was her word against the schools and she was getting paid time off despite wife saying they never had a conversation about paid or not paid time off, There was also the fact she went as an external student from sept 15 but was allowed tutor/lector support still and her Union said she was still within the 2 year contract for her degree the school agreed on but the HT argued that he should still have been informed she had decided to go external. After all this was weighed up HR and the head were still pushing for a sacking "said the union rep" and the evidence for her uni weighed heavily against her and that she would most likely lose if she challenged it. They were pushing for "gross misconduct" the Union rep said to wife that there was another way to do this and she had a 3 way convo with HR and the HT and managed to get a deal that if she was to hand her notice in before the disciplinary she would finish 20th July and get paid to the end of August. She would get a decent reference and the HT doesn't think he needs to mention there was a pending disciplinary but would need to contact HR on that so still waiting on the outcome on that one. Can't say it was the best result but I think my wife has been very lucky scraping out of this.