Finally facing up to debts and need advice

[fred76]

Hello

 

For years I have buried my head in the sand and hidden from my debts but I am finally facing up to them and I would really appreciate advice on how to sort them out.

 

I have got a copy of my credit file, and these are my debts:

 

DEFAULTS

 

Sept 2009 Look Again £82

March 2011 Payday Express £575

July 2011 Lowell £759

June 2013 1st Credit £707

June 2013 Lowell £807

June 2013 Express Gifts £667

Sept 2013 Provident £385

Dec 2013 S&U £345

 

 

I am currently not repaying any of these debts except S&U. As I said, I have been putting my headi in the sand.

 

CCJS

 

2008 Tower Capital £610 - this was paid off via and AoE but is still showing as active on my file. I have written to Tower Capital but got no response. I don't think they are trading any longer.

 

2009 United Utilities £334

 

2014 SD Taylor £995 - I am paying this off at £100 per month - balance now at £795.

 

I haven't gone down the route of asking for CCAs or Default Letters for any of these debts. Would that be worth doing?

 

I am thinking of writing to the £82 default and asking if I pay it in full, would they remove the default as a gesture of goodwill. Would that be worth a shot? I could maybe do the same with the £345 debt to Provident, although over 3 payments not 1. I thought of asking S&U to remove the default as I am still repaying the debt to them and as a current customer, maybe they would agree to this as a gesture of goodwill.

 

Is any of the above worth doing?

 

I want to sort things out and get things paid off and repair my file. It's taken me a long time to get to this point and I know I have been really stupid, but I want to put things right now, I just don't know where to start.

 

If going down a CCA / Default letter route is worth doing and would help my situation, could someone tell me what to do? If it wouldn't help, is a Debt Management plan worth entering to start getting everything paid off, or will this just make my file much worse?

 

I really am grateful for any advice. I suffer from very bad depression and it is a big step for me to be trying to sort things out, so even though you must think I am stupid, please don't be too harsh with me. Any advice is gratefully received.

[DuffNCustard]

Well congratulations for taking the first and most difficult step - writing down all your debts and settling down to figure out how to deal with them all. You are now firmly in charge and should reward yourself with a nice plate of egg and chips or whatever other inexpensive treat you enjoy!

 

I'm a former debtor and thanks to the good advice and support I received on this site and a debt charity I managed to clear it all and am now happily debt free and living within my means - cash only now.

 

I suggest that your next step is to ensure that your debts are really the amount you state, for example if there are any PPI charges included then you should claim them back, the same goes for excessive penalty charges - generally any penalties over £12 are considered to be excessive and you can claim them back. Folks here will be able to assist you with template letters etc if this is applicable in your case.

 

There are several approaches to clearing debt, I'll restrict myself to detailing what worked for me and Mr Duff who today finally cleared all his debts too - egg n chips all round tonight!!

 

First off figure out exactly how much spare cash you have each month to pay your debts, to do this you can use income and expenditure templates that can be found here on this site or on

 

http://www.stepchange.org/Debtinformationandadvice.aspx

 

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/Pages/default.aspx

 

these are the sites of 2 of the UK debt charities, they hold a huge amount of useful information as well as letter templates. Your second task (I used to be a Programme Manager so pardon me please!!!) should be to thoroughly bone up on what your rights are and what your creditors can and cannot do. I cannot emphasise too strongly how important it is to become au fait with this as it enables you to remain in control and to not be manipulated by your creditors, knowledge is power.

 

The general principle used is that you treat all your creditors equitably. Creditors are required to adhere to agreed protocols and conduct guides, quite often they don't but I wanted to keep my nose clean in case I got involved in CCJS - in the event I didn't but I did ensure that none of them were favoured over the others and that was in spite of extreme arm twisting by one of my nastier creditors.

 

Once you know how much money you have left each month you can work out how much to pay each creditor. If you are really in a bind then all they get is £1 a month, there is no court in the land or creditor that can magic money out of thin air only the banks can do that via fractional reserve banking but I digress!

 

I calculated the proportion (%) that each of my debts was of my total debt and used that % to determine how much to pay each creditor. The only exception to this is utilities (gas, electicity water) council tax, maintenance payments, income tax or any debt to HMRC, fines or CCJs/ rent, mortgage - these are priority debts and are not governed by the CCA1974 (consumer debt) and take precedence over everything else.

 

Either of the debt charities that I've included links to will help you .with this, I used StepChange who ran a debt management plan for me.

 

The CCA /Default letter route - I don't think you're at this stage yet. This is generally a 'prove the debt' action when you dispute the debt, it is for the creditor to prove that you owe the money not for you to prove that you don't. It comes into play when you think a creditor is saying you owe more than you do, or when you think they are going to go for a CCJ or when you want a copy of the original credit agreement, suspecting that the creditor is playing fast and loose with the terms and conditions.

[dx100uk]

the bottom line here that you need to remember that any CCJ will stay on your file for 6yrs from the date its settled

 

and any debt listed with a default will VANISH on the defaults 6th birthday REGARDLESS to payments or not.

however, that does not mean the debt is void or not owed

only a CCA request [where applicable] will answer that.

 

dx