Hello all, This is probably going to be quite a long post, so I hope some of you will bear with me to the end, as I could really do with some advice as to what I need to do regarding a large amount of debt, Firstly, I should point out that everything I tell you in this post refers to both myself and my wife. We have outstanding debt worth approximately £55,000. It has slowly built up over the past few years and unfortunately neither of us has tried to take control of the debt, but now, we know we have to as the debt is becoming less manageable. All of the debt is in unsecured credit cards, and some catalogue, store cards . There are no loans,and we have never defaulted on any payments. I was diagnosed with Cancer a couple of years ago and unfortunately I have been unable to work since, due to treatments, hospital appointments, tiredness and feeling generally unwell. My wife also doesn't work as she is my main carer. We receive benefits, this includes PIP, ESA, Carers Allowance, and Child Benefit, and up until now we have just about managed to pay the debts each month but it is now getting to the point that it is becoming a struggle. Bills are always paid on time, Gas/Electric, Water, TV License, Sky (minimum package) and BT for phone and internet. We own our house outright so there is no mortgage or rent to worry about and we are exempt from council tax. So my question to the forum, is should we now consider a DMP, as we know that in a few months, our outgoings will surpass our incomings, and we would be in the situation of not being able to pay all of the debts each month. The other option we are looking at is to sell our house, however, we would need to be able to buy somewhere at a reasonable price, so that we could use some of the sale money towards paying off the debt. If we start a DMP now, and say in 6 months we have £25000 left over from the sale of our house, can we stop the DMP and try to arrange full and final settlements with each of our creditors? Would the credit card companies be willing to accept a reduced final settlement figure or because we have always paid on time, they do not see us as a bad debt? Any advice will be greatly appreciated, and for the DMP we are thinking of using Stepchange.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-19384548