Just a quick update. Received a letter from my Mortgage companies solicitors on Friday of last week (was due in court this Monday) stating that they have dropped the case or rather its now on hold on the premise that we maintain our current agreement which has been in place for the past 3 months...just a shame they couldnt just agree to this a month ago rather than having to issue proceedings and the added worry it brought Ell-enn - Thankyou for respnding to my questions and offering advice.

Thanks for responding Ell-enn. Ive had a read through the guides and will complete my N11M form today (im actually in court next Monday so hope this will be ok timewise?). I intend to complete the form online , so I assume I can add / upload appendix letters when doing so? Also as an additional point , I paid my mortgage payment on Saturday plus the additional £100 and the advisor I spoke to at my mortgage company then proceeded to re set up an agreement for the amount id be proposing to the court anyhow plus reset up the direct debit as I had been paying each payment via card payments over the telephone ( my mortgage company stated that they were unwilling to set up any future arrangements as previous ones had been broken and that's the reason for issuing the court proceedings but now that they have again im really confused as too what is happening?? Ive made the same payment for 3 months now so arrears have dropped by £300 and if they have agreed to the repayment scheme would it not be deemed as a waste of the courts time by the judge for taking me there??)

Hi All Please could you urgently assist before i worry myself into an early grave In one weeks time I have to attend court as my mortgage company is seeking possession of my family home. Im currently 2 1/2 months in arrears totalling approximately £1200. I have had past agreements with the mortagge company which have broken for one reason or another, ie boiler breaking, car needed fixing and with feeling under pressure to agree to unrealistic repayment schemes. A couple of years ago the arrears were 6 months so slowly but steadily they have been coming down although there have been months when things have happened when ive not been able to make a payment as we have no savings for emergencies such as stated. Please could someone advise what is likely to happen at the court, is the judge likely to allow me to set up a repayment plan for the arrears, id be proposing an extra £100 / month so could clear the arrears in 12 months ( theres approx 16years left on my mortgage). Also whats the likelihood that the judge wouldn't allow me the time and agree to repossession, just for added info i'm amrried with 2 young children and have no where else to go?? also fogot to add that for the previous 3 months ive paid the normal mortgage amount plus the extra £100 im proposing so there is some evidence that this is manageable plus at no point in my time on arrears have ai been offered any options such as putting the arrears on the term of my mortagge or going to interest only for a period of months until the arrears is cleared. Any advice would be really appreciated as I'd like to complete my defence form and statement of earnings / outgoings tonight. Also if someone could offer some guidance, advice it would be much appreciated Worried sick, please advise.

Hi Jollyjojo, Sorry to hear about ur predicament but at this point please do not worry too much. Branch managers can no longer offer reduced payments or final settlements however they will hassle you to get as much as you can physically pay to try to continue to meet their targets (as their job role entails!) My advice would be to pay what YOU can afford and the next time the branch phones you flatly refuse to talk to them and tell them that you will only speak to head office going forward. They WILL ring you several times but you must stick to your guns. Once your arrears meet 6moths you will be passed to the head office which is what you want. Head office will then request your income / expenditure off you, i know several people say dont respond and legally at this point u dont have to but i would,if you show you have enough disposable income to pay around 40% of the normal monthly payment they will then accept and amend your payments to match. Now here comes the good part, whilst your account is at head office all interest payments will cease, they will tell you this over the phone but make sure that before you agree that the revised lower payments are acceptable they send you written confirmation to confirm this. Basically this then means that although you are paying less a month, with the frozen interest the term of the loan will not increase by any significant time. (The people at head office realise that anything is better than nothing and to be fair are generally far more sociable creatures than your ickle branch managers.)

The branches can no longer extend terms, reduce monthly payments or freeze interest, HOWEVER, this shows the incompetance for welcome as if u wait tunill such time that your loan gets passed to their secured collection centre (normally 6 missed payments) then all interest is instantly stopped and you will be asked to complete an income / expenditure form. So long as your figures show that your incapable of making your normal monthly payments they will accept your reduced payment proposal based on your disposal income. Sould u decide to stop paying it may be worthwhile in placing what u would have paid into an account which could then be used to show willing to make a first larger payment than norm before settling into a reduced payment scheme with no interest for the duration of the loan and thus saving u 000's and placing you in cotrol to pay only what u can afford

shameless bumpety bump Any input would be appreciated - is this worth investigating or do you feel its a non starter?

Hi All, Just been having a look through my old finance agreements with Welscum and all agreements (secured loans) appear to be variable based on the LIBOR rates (for those not in the know the interest rates that banks lend money between each other) Now my question is this, if the above is correct and with the credit crunch that happened over the past few years surely the LIBOR rate (as per interest rates) have reduced and if so was joe public informed and their monthly payments rightly reduced - has this happened for anyone? Anyone / MODS can you give some feedback on this - if LIBOR did reduce surely people can reclaim the savings not passed back to them OR would the fact that Welcome never did this is and the fact that it is stated in the contract then completely invalidate it?? hmmmmm

They have a compnay meeting at the start of Feb where they will confirm if they have enough votes for the company to buy of each of their share holders for 1p per share (There shares were worth over £3 each at their peak). Once the deal goes through and unfortunately it will, the company will then reform under the new name Bovis - debt will continue to be collected until the point where its more expensive for the company to continue to collect then they recoup (they are already £1billion in debt) at which point its anyones guess what will happen - personally id be hoping for administrators but we live in hope. My own personal view is they will go to the wall eventually but will then re rise again like a pheonix from the flames. Directors will stay the same grabbing their huge salaries, all companies debts will be wiped (wish joe public could do the same) and they will begin lending again under stricter criteria.

8%!! - better than any interest they'ld get at a bank!

Hi Tam, Can you give a few more details, was the loan a secured loan or for car finance. If for car finance did welcome then apply for a charging order on your property? If secured, was it agreed that you would increase your payments over a period of time to remove the arrears?

Hi Billy - when you said your loan was for 18k was that inclusive of welcomes interest rate or is that solely the amount of the loan? - if solely the loan i think you'ld be lucky if they would do the norm and offer you the std 50% reduction as you would have only paid 2/3 of the original amount out and no interest back. I know its not great news - have you tried entering into a repayment scheme with salans or are they now after the total amount outstanding or nothing? Also is their equity in your property, if not and you can provide the solicitors with a couple of valutions plus mortgage outstanding details to show that if they did repo they wouldnt recoup their losses you may have slightly more wiggle room in regards to what they would accept

nioclik - this highlights welcome stupidity, at branch level the most they can reduce the debt by is 35% but should you ''choose'' to miss 6 payments your loan can then get transferred to solicitors where the reduction is generally increased to 50% - therefore penalising the people who pay on time every month. I would never condone or suggest anyone does this but i have heard of people not paying for 6 months (not blowing the money that should have been used to fund the loan but keeping it to one side), waiting for the loan to be passed to the sols, offer to be made of f50% and loan to be paid of in F&F. If the offer wasnt forthcoming the money placed to one side would have been used to bring the account back upto date. The mayor downside to this is though is you have to be prepared for the constant calls and letters and the payment (or lack off) markers on your credit file and then be prepared to reclaim all the charges they would have applied!

Billy Goat - Welcomes normal protocal is when an account gets passed to solicitors the settlement figure gets reduced to 50% of the outstanding debt - in your case 9K which is still a large amount. How many payments have you missed, how much are you behind and is the loan secured / unsecured?

I totally agree it would be foolhardy to believe loans will be written of because quite simply they won't(dont know who said they would just dissapear??!!)However what is likely to happen is when the expenditure of the company becomes more than the intake of monies gathered on outstanding loans its at this point the company will be sold on and at which point significantly reduced settlement figures should be available.

The staff in a few more branches have today been told they're to be closed. Slowly, slowly catchie monkey.... the end crawls nearer

Its for shareholders who have 1% or more to fill out to register how they want to vote in rgds to the new proposal of selling and obtaining 1p/share

they own lewis collections - who like their parent company also made a loss last year. theres was only - £5million though. They also own shopacheck which may be sold of by itself as a going concern as its the only arm of the company that is profitable

Just as an afterthought whos betting that this new ''charitable trust'' will have many of the same directors currently employed at Welcome...... Also if they somehow manage to turn this company around in a couple of years and put forward new business strategies with procedures in place to begin lending again they could sell it for many times there initial measly £5 million investment....shocking situation.....

This company has more lifes than a cat!! According to yesterdays announcements the board has put a proposal forawrd for the company to be bought for a measly £5million, if succesfull the company would then be owned and run by a ''charitable trust' WTF. Long and short appears to be that if the company isn't sold in 12months it would be put into liquidation which then means its a devils own job recouping any debts still outstanding howvere if bought by this supposed charitable trust it can be run down for however many years to recoup all outstanding monies. The AGM is at the end of the month when the sharholders have to vote on the situation, a 75% approval is needed to agree the proposal and if so they will get a huge return of 1p/share....saving grace is that this company was worth £3 / share just over 18months ago! See anouncement below: RNS Number : 9240M Cattles PLC 02 June 2010 2 June 2010 Cattles plc Possible offer for Cattles plc ("Cattles") As has previously been announced, Cattles has been in discussions for some time with representatives of its key financial creditors concerning a consensual restructuring of its liabilities. One of the options being discussed with those representatives includes a proposal under which a newly incorporated company, formed and managed by a corporate service provider and ultimately owned by a charitable trust, would make an offer to acquire the entire issued share capital of Cattles (which would be effected by a shareholder scheme of arrangement). Given the existing deficit in shareholders' funds and the significant losses Cattles' financial creditors will incur, Cattles would not expect any payment to shareholders to exceed 1p per share. Any such offer would be likely to comprise solely cash consideration. However, there can be no certainty that any offer will ultimately be made or as to the terms or timing of any offer. The making of any such offer is subject to a number of matters, including obtaining all necessary approvals. A further announcement will be made when appropriate. A copy of this announcement will also be made available on Cattles' website www.cattles.co.uk by no later than 12.00 noon (London time) on 3 June 2010. Rule 2.10 of the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers (the "Code") Rule 2.10 of the Code requires the announcement of the number of shares in issue of Cattles. Cattles confirms that it has in issue 526,066,902 ordinary shares of 10 pence each. The ISIN for the shares is GB0001803666. For further information, please contact: Cattles plc Margaret Young, Executive Chairman 020 7269 7252 Lexicon Partners Matthew Lindsey-Clark 020 7653 6000 Financial Dynamics Paul Marriott 020 7269 7252 Lexicon Partners, which is authorised and regulated by the FSA in the United Kingdom, is acting exclusively for Cattles and no-one else in connection with any offer and will not be responsible to anyone other than Cattles for providing the protections afforded to clients of Lexicon Partners nor for providing advice in relation to any offer or any other matters referred to in this announcement. Disclosure requirements of the Code Under Rule 8.3(a) of the Code, any person who is interested in 1% or more of any class of relevant securities of an offeree company or of any paper offeror (being any offeror other than an offeror in respect of which it has been announced that its offer is, or is likely to be, solely in cash) must make an Opening Position Disclosure following the commencement of the offer period and, if later, following the announcement in which any paper offeror is first identified. An Opening Position Disclosure must contain details of the person's interests and short positions in, and rights to subscribe for, any relevant securities of each of (i) the offeree company and (ii) any paper offeror(s). An Opening Position Disclosure by a person to whom Rule 8.3(a) applies must be made by no later than 3.30 pm (London time) on the 10th business day following the commencement of the offer period and, if appropriate, by no later than 3.30 pm (London time) on the 10th business day following the announcement in which any paper offeror is first identified. Relevant persons who deal in the relevant securities of the offeree company or of a paper offeror prior to the deadline for making an Opening Position Disclosure must instead make a Dealing Disclosure. Under Rule 8.3(b) of the Code, any person who is, or becomes, interested in 1% or more of any class of relevant securitie

lol - serves me right for rushing and not checking - those pillows are hard though......

Hi Willow, Please can you update where this thread is upto, if the problem is still ongoing I may be able to assist. As with any product purchased, a sofa being sold with the intention of being used in a private dwelling must be fit for purpose, not just for general wear and tear but also legally compliant to UK fire and furnishing laws, trade descriptions, and pass to a minimum performance standard that is set both within the UK furniture standards and which will also have been tailored by each retailer. Please can you confirm if you are still chasing for a refund? If the sofa sold was leather (or at least claimed to be!) or textile? What type of faults its has demonstrated besides you not plumping up the pillers as per regulation 5 subsection 3 paragraph 2 of the DFS care records?! for example is the sofa demonstrating pilling (little balls), broken threads, cross staining issues etc etc?? Once you confirm ill point you in the right direction, I had a similar problem with a sofa purchased from Littlewoods which was sub standard, they sent there apparent ''expert'' out to inspect the sofa and agreed that it was faulty and then proceeded to replace it with the exact same model, fabric and style of sofa and guess what....yep the same problem occured again. Littlewoods claimed that because they had replaced the sofa once already they were under no obliigation to replace it again...wrong! Long story short I made two payments obn the sofa, littlewoods tried to place the debt with 6 seperate debt recovery agents, none of which would persue it after i explained the faults, the reason why i perceived them as faults and finally what my job title / background is...

Just the next batch of redundancies - unfortunately welcome will still exist at least at head office but at least they may be further away from you if your lucky and your local branch is one of the ones selected. Regardless what you read on here its important to be realistic.... Welcome will still be around for at least 2 years and will sell your debt on when they finally close the doors for the last time, its not going to dissappear but it WILL be open for negotation and various discounts. An indication when they are going to close will probably be highlighted with an increased numbers of offers being despatched at ever increasing discounts.... its better too get 20p in the pound from current customers than 5p in the pound from a debt collection company.

try the below link deejay - it makes for interesting reading CATTLES Discussion CTT CTT.L - Interactive Investor

Thanks for that clampingking, once the specialist has examined the car I will update the thread as too the outcome.

The car was very much driveable after the crash. My colleague has left for the day but the car in question was a peugout 206 cabriolet if that helps? As a further footnote, my colleague had the car picked up (transporter) and had it delivered to a garage local to herself, they have just phoned to say that the engine is so badly damaged it is completely irrepairable and it looks like the insurers reccomended garage has tried to cover up some of the damage?? She has been in touch with the insurers and they are now sending out a specialist to examine the car. Now if the specialist confirms that the engine was damaged solely due to an incorrectly fitted timing belt where do they stand and is it actually possible for them to deduce this? would the insurers authorise the repair or is it down to the initail garage to authorise the repair. This has dragged on long enough now and my colleague is desperate to have this resolved.