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On a iva thinking about 2nd job?

March 23, 2019, 11:36 am
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Hello all.

I'm on a joint iva with my wife with step change . We are now on our 2nd year on the iva but with things in life getting more expensive we have questions but before we make a move for a 2nd job we thought would ask others for advice.

I work 44 hours a week my wife works 39 hours a week.

Would a 2nd job which would only be about £120 a week.

Would it massively effect the amount of tax I already pay and would it massively effect the amount we pay on our iva?
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CCJ (Scotland) advice

March 23, 2019, 12:54 pm
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Hoping someone can help.

I’ve been paying back a ccj in installments for the past couple of years. My last payment is due end of this month but this is where i’m getting confused. On my credit files the amount is registered at x amount - this will be paid off next week however the paperwork has this amount plus court fees and 8% interest. Is the amount registerd with the CRA’s the total amount or have I got extra to pay after what I thought was my last payment?

I have had no statements in the time i’ve been paying this off and only records I have are my own bank statements.

My ccj was issued in Scotland.
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Pre-paid Cards

March 23, 2019, 3:40 pm
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Evening all
Not sure if I am in the right place but I am sure post will be moved if not .
Pre paid cards I was thinking that as I am currently in a DMP about getting a prepaid card to help with budgeting (can only spend what's put on it) . Does anyone use a PP card and any recommendations? Any pros and cons about using one?:)
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Advice appreciated on 8k of debt getting in the way of life

March 24, 2019, 4:51 am
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Hello,

I’d be very grateful if anyone could give me some advice on the best way to proceed with my finances. I’m not in financial difficulties, but have a life plan which would be enhanced by clearing debt.

My situation is that as part of my split from my ex wife 8 years ago, I agreed to buy a family home so my kids would have stability and us an investment. We are both on the deeds and mortgage. We both make equal payments and are entitled to equal equity.

After the split, I was immature naïve and stupid with money, and started borrowing to compensate, yes I had a red sports car. But I have a brilliant job in IT and love where I work. Sadly credit is easy and cheap for me. Particularly in the last year I’ve grown up a lot (I’m 46) and have been learning to live within my means.

My plan is that in 5 years the family house will be sold, when my youngest finishes secondary school. I will then buy a modest flat with the equity and a small mortgage. Once that’s paid off and the time is right, I will then move back to Cornwall and buy a small cottage by the sea mortgage free – and maybe meet me a lovely mermaid too!

An issue for me is that I commute 64 miles everyday by car (11 year old Alfa 147) – I live in the country but work in west London. I did try living in London but hated it. My car will need to be replaced in the next two years, as the cambelt and clutch are end of life. The gearbox may die sooner though. I had the car converted to run on LPG so effectively it gives 60mpg, but it’s expensive to maintain, but cheaper than public transport.

I’m going like crazy to make over payments to my 8.1K debt, the term has about 4 years left, but projected to complete in 2 with the OPs. I have to pay this debt off before getting a new car, so want to try and pay this back in one year, then maybe save towards the new car – which will be electric and have lower running costs. The bad person in me says borrow more to get the car and savings on running costs.

I’ve just re-mortgaged too, and got a 5 year fixed at 1.9%. the term is 10 years. Me and the ex decided to use the money saved (£44 each) to make overpayments to it, that could reduce it to 9 years, but I do have the option to not make an overpayment if in trouble.

I guess the kind of advice I’d appreciate is: what to do about the car and how can I trim my spending down?

Sorry for the long post, and many thanks. Below is an SOA
Bill
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Aqua default letter

March 24, 2019, 5:32 am
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I have been in a DMP with StepChange since August. Yesterday I received a default letter from aqua wanting me to pay £56. I am clearly not in a position to pay this. They know that I am in a DMP so why are they sending me a default letter now? Do I need to phone them to explain this again or can I jus ignore it?
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Bristol and sutor help please

March 24, 2019, 5:49 am
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Can anyone help me please, Bristow and suitor have a controlled goods agreement on us although the council tax is in my husbands name they set it up with me and only I signed it is it still valid? We are three weeks behind have told agent we will catch up this Thursday 28.03.19 but he said unless we pay by this Tuesday he will seize goods, the items listed are all second hand and wouldnt even cover the £1256 owing, this is very distressing my daughter already has mental health issues 14yrs old sorry to jump on here I can't work out how to start a new thread any advice much appreciated
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IVA or DMP, advice from Stepchange is confusing

March 24, 2019, 9:38 am
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Hi all
In brief, I have £18,000 worth of unsecured debt (credit cards/loans). This includes a credit card which is in my brother's name (I pay it as it is my debt).
I have contacted Stepchange and completed an income/expenditure form as the 0% periods are ending and the minimum payments are too much.
Stepchange calculated that I have £113 a month spare for debt, and said on the phone that a DMP would be best. I have now received paperwork to check which states that they recommend an IVA instead.
I've looked online and read through the pack but I am still unsure as to what would be the best option in terms of paying off this debt? I haven't missed any payments so far but that is due to using card each month, so debt is always increasing.
Advice appreciated please!
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CCA request - how to pay the £1?

March 24, 2019, 11:10 am
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Sorry - I realise this is probably a really stupid question, but when sending CCA requests, how should we pay the £1? No cheque book so do we literally put £1 in the envelopes?

Also - are all template letters the same (planning on using National Debtline template) or is there an easier/most recommended version? Don't think can use Resolver?

Thanks again for your advice. Always greatly appreciated.
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Advice - how to spend lump sum

March 24, 2019, 12:17 pm
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I have about 3,000 to spend on debts. I am looking for advice on to how to spend that money on my debts.

Presently I have the following debts -

Federal Income Tax - Around $6,000, monthly payments of $130
State Income Tax - Around $600 - monthly payments have not yet been set up
Car Loan - $4,800 remains, monthly payment of $215, interest rate 6%
Brand new personal loan - $1,500 principal, 75% APR, monthly payments of $137 for 19 months
Best Buy Card - Limit $2,000 current balance $1,900
Synchrony Bank Card - Limit $500, current balance $315
Kohls Store Card - Limit $700, current balance $642
Capital One Card - Limit $400, current balance $367
Milestone Credit Card - Limit $300, current balance $215

My initial instinct was to pay off the new personal loan before that atrocious APR kicks in, and then use the remainder to pay off my state taxes and then my federal taxes. But now I am wondering if I should get those credit card balances down with the money instead.

So, I decided to post and get advice and thoughts.

Thank you!
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Our current situ......

March 24, 2019, 2:49 pm
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Hi everyone,

Big fan of Martin Lewis here and bucked up the courage to ask the thread for their honest opinion on mine and my OH financial situation.

We aren't clogged with thousands of debt compared to others on the thread but to us we struggle to see a way out just now.

Our main debts are (balances at time of posting):
1. Credit Union Loan = £1191.25 @ 19.5% paying £90 per month
2. Walker Love = £unknown @ 0.0% paying £43 per month
3. Lowell 1 = £74.62 @ 0.0% paying £10 per month
4. Lowell 2 = £123.61 @ 0.0% paying £15 per month
5. Aqua CC = £423.71 @ 44% paying minimum per month (around £25)
6. Capital CC = £486.49 @ 35% paying minimum per month (around £25)
7. Littlewoods = £422.65 @ 0.0% paying £77 per month (subject to change due to repayment periods)
TOTAL = £3722.33

I have used card eligibility checker to see if I can get a balance transfer but I have no luck. Awaiting a balance update from walker love but Im positive its £1000+

Here is my full overview:
Income after tax : Mine : £269 per week (£1076 if calculated at 4 weeks per month)
OH : £739 per month
Total : £1815 per month
Outgoings :
Rent : 300
Car : 240
Energy : 80
Phones : 89
Fuel : 170 (alot but needed due to work locations)
Food shopping : 160
Loan : 91
Christmas saver : 50 (requirement)
Walker love : 43
Council Tax : 80
Phone Insurance : 11
Domestic & General : 10
iCloud : 3
Lowell : 25
Pet Insurance : 37 (requirement)
Contents Insurance : 10
Aqua Card : 20
Capital Card : 20
Pet Care Plan : 8 due to increase to 24
Littlewoods : 77
Virgin : 35
Now TV : 8
TOTAL : £1587 PER MONTH

Spare Cash : £228 PER MONTH

Now as im paid weekly I have a standing order to put my weekly pay away into savings until 1 date each month to then pay everything out in one go and I have calculated that 4 of my pays will be "spare" meaning I will have £269 to put towards something either savings, debt or a treat.

Currently me and my OH have no emergency cash or any savings. Should we look at using the £228 left over per month and put £28 into savings, £100 into a debt and £100 to last us that month or what ? any suggestions?

Sorry about that long post but any advice would be helpful as well as constructive criticism. TIA
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What small DFW things will you do w/c 25th March?

March 24, 2019, 10:17 pm
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When we start out on the DFW trail we do loads of "big stuff" that makes quite a difference to our situation. These include having our lightbulb moment, cutting up the credit cards and cancelling Sky and the gym.

But once we have done the bigger stuff, we often feel that we are not making the same amount of progress, when in fact the small steps are helping us form good financial habits and helping us get closer everyday to staying in control and becoming debt free, or staying debt free.

Examples could be hanging washing out instead of using the tumble dryer or leaving your purse/wallet at home to avoid the risk of spending.

So be proud of those small steps, they really are important! :money:
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DMP Full and Final CCA requests

March 25, 2019, 12:43 am
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Hi All

I have searched and searched but cant find anything to answer my questions in full so forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere.

Been in a DMP with stepchange for 5 years with just over 4 years remaining to pay. We have been kindly offered me £8000 from my dad who was left it in a will to try and clear the DMP so i have sent initial letters to all our creditors to try and get a reduced settlement. Our initial offer to start the process was 30% as i didn't want to go straight in with what we had as thought we would end up having to barter.

We have 11 debts in total, all but one sold to DCA, the likes of PRA, Westcot, Capquest, Cabot, Lowell and Robinson Way - Hoist - totalling together just over £20k (already paid back £21k) original debts being barclays x 3, virgin x 2, natwest, tesco and Hitachi Capital.

After reading on this forum i saw about the CCA requests so i have sent letters off to all, but my question is, one of the PRA accounts is for a barclays account which has the highest balance £5700, about 2 years ago out of the blue we were contacted by mail from barclays to say we had PPI on an account so were refunded about £1300. I am however unsure if this PPI was on an account that was previously EGG that i am pretty sure is closed and not this barclaycard within the DMP, if i am wrong however and it is the account that was EGG on the DMP does that mean the likelyhood of them having my original agreement is quite strong as they were able to see it had PPI? It says on my credit report the defaulted account in the DMP was opened may 2010 and from research barclays took over egg accounts in 2011? I was terrible for keeping any records and paperwork back then, learnt my lesson now though!

At the minute PRA and Cabot have come back offering 95%full and final which is well over the £8k. When i spoke to stepchange i told them my situation and she was confident that as the debts were with DCA and the amount i was looking to offer was reasonable i had a good chance of getting the settlement i want. Is this just normal and i have a while of bartering to look forward to before they come to an agreement, if they find the credit agreements what bartering power do i have, equally if they cant find the agreements is the amount i am offering too much?

Is it reasonable to get a £20k debt reduced that much. We currently pay £357 to stepchange with PRA getting the most @ £105 a month, Defaults are from 2014-2015. We've been squeaky clean paying the debts for 5 years which i suppose looking at it doesn't help our case to want reduced settlements as we arent showing any struggle in paying.

I just want to use this money dad has given us to finally get us clean, we wont get this kind of offer again so its now or never and i dont fancy paying for another 4 years. My dad doesn't have a lot himself either and if we dont use it now he cant guarantee it wont be needed for something else and we lose out :-(

Any advice or guidance would be most appreciated,

Thanks
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Being pursued for a debt incurred in a property after i moved out, am i liable?

March 25, 2019, 1:48 am
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So a couple of weeks ago i noticed a debt on my credit file which i didn't recognise. It was a water bill. I contacted the water company and they advised that the water bill hadn't been paid for 18 months (this dates back 4 years). The only thing is the billing period was for the next 18 months after i moved out of the property. I was advised the debt had been passed to a debt collectors (Lowells) and i would need to contact them, which i did. They have advised that i was liable as i hadn't informed the water company i had moved out of the property, which i did back in 2015. I have evidence that i was living at a different address and that the property in question was let out a further 2 times during the billing period. Despite this they are still telling me that i am liable. I tried contacting citizens advice but they couldn't help just advised me to look at there website, which again didn't answer the question. Should i just pay the bill or i am within my rights to refuse? any advice would be appreciated
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Paying off credit card with student fees still outgoing

March 25, 2019, 2:11 am
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So my last bit of debt to get rid of is my credit card. It's got £2128.33 of which I pay the minimum payment of £47.88. On my March bill I was charged £4.86 on my standard balance and £8.28 on my balance transfer.

Now this is a card I got years ago and I haven't spent on it for about 2 years, just paid it off but originally my interest was so high that my interest was more than my payments. About 6 months ago I rang Barclays and sorted a lower interest rate and felt like I Was finally getting somewhere with it.

However, after a bit of financial difficulty, as of January I have ended up paying for my masters with that credit card. My masters is 3 years long (part time) and I am in my 3rd year now. In January, I had to decide whether to pay the £2000 for my final year (which I couldn't really afford), or drop out. Now dropping out would mean that due to not finishing the course I would need to pay £6000 back to student finance (!) so I decided to continue for my final year and simply linked my university to my credit card. I was in my overdraft at the time so I couldn't use my normal bank account to pay it off and whilst I am slowly getting in a better financial position, I feel like this isn't the best way of doing things.


In March, I paid £42.45 but then there was £13ish interest and £270.80 went out for my university fees. It also didn't cross my mind at the time that I would be charged a fee as this is a balance transfer so that's a pain. :o

So whereas before I felt like I was slowly paying this off, it's now slowly building and I'm not sure the best way to go about this?

I should probably add, I have looked into credit cards with 0 transfer fee but I don't seem to apply. I only seem to be able to get the ones that are 0% interest for around 6 months which I'm not sure would be too helpful?

Any advice woudl be appreciated!
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Follow up after CCA

March 25, 2019, 5:02 am
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Hi, we sent CCA requests around two months ago. We waited and heard nothing then followed up with settlement offers. Not had anything back from either letter. I know it can take months but I’m wanting to follow up. Does anyone have an email address for this kind of query for Capquest or Link? We did have some docs through from PRA but we also sent a settlement offer to them and heard nothing.

Don’t want to leave it and wait too much longer as each month we’re paying £456 across the debts and I’d rather settle than start messing about stopping the dmp payments and having to self manage each one. This will be our next move but I’d like to email them first to prompt them. Letters take too long and don’t really want to call.
Thanks
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CAA and Current Account

March 25, 2019, 5:25 am
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Hi Advisors and Helpers
I recently applied to PRA for a CCA and enclosed £1 which was later returned with the explanation that as my debt was for a LTSB current account taken out in 1983 and purchased by PRA in 2013 it is "not protected by the Consumer Credit Act (CCA)1974.
Can this be correct?
Walterman
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CCJ payment advice

March 25, 2019, 7:30 am
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Hi all,

Apologies if this has been asked elsewhere.

I have had a letter through to advise that I am being taken to court regarding an unpaid debt. The Court Date has been granted for mid-May.

IF I lose my case in court and a CCJ is issued, what additional fees am I likely to need to pay? The reason I ask is that I do not want a CCJ against my name and so if the CCJ is issued I fully intend to pay within the 1 month timeframe to ensure this is removed from my file. However, I just need an idea of what additional fees I may be liable for in the event that I lose the case.

The debt being disputed is for around £500.00 and the court fee is listed on the paperwork as £55.00. Will there be anything else I am liable for if I lose my case?

Thanks in advance.
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Partial Settlements Time on File

March 25, 2019, 9:34 am
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Hi Everyone

I've been in a DMP since 2011. I've been making regular payments of an initial large debt balance of £68,000.

Over the last few months I've had a change in circumstances and dont have enough to continue to pay my DMP. My family have offered me some funds to make a partial settlement offer to my 8 creditors.

I was advised that I should only do this if I had a min of 35-40% 9f the remaining debt which is currently around £34k. Since November I have been trying to work with my creditors with their initial responses a no, dispite me explaining why, showing each of them my financial statement, my other debt etc. Only 1 of the creditors (capital one) have accepted my offer but that did take 4 months of trying.

My questions are:
1. If I pay off capital one how long will the partial settlement fee remain on my credit file? I've seen some it will be from the date or my payment for 6 years, others saying it will be 6 years from when my DMP started and the first default notice was issues.- so as it was 2011 it should be off my file now. I just want to check as another 6 years on my file wouldnt be great

2. Does anyone have any advice of suggestions on how to engage with othe creditors more successfully? I've had 1 from 8 responding positively with the others just saying no as the offer was too low. One of them said they would settle and give me £105 off the balance of £6k - so not ideal as if I had nearly 100% of the money owed i wouldn't be trying to make a lower offer.

Any input is greatly appreciated

Thanks
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Debt Collector's Fee

March 25, 2019, 6:11 pm
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This month I received an emailed letter from a debt collector saying I owed £185(ish). Being naturally suspicious of emails telling me I owe money and open the attachment for details, I did a bit of research and concluded that the debt collector and who they were gathering for were real. But I had no idea why I owed them anything so I emailed the debt collector asking for details. No response.

More research, and it transpired that the company I owed money to was the legal entity that owns Green Motion car hire so I contacted their head office. They verified that it was a £94 charge for them to fill in the paperwork for a traffic violation and sent me a scan. Penny dropped, and I remembered the incident from when I hired a car from their Stansted branch last July.

I asked why I hadn't been informed before and was told "we know nothing, it's with the debt collector".

I asked why nothing had been mentioned when I hired a car from them last month using exactly the same details. No response.

Quick call to the Debt Advice Foundation, and they recommended I pay the traffic violation fee and let Green Motion deal with the collector's fee. So I did, and got an emailed acknowledgement from the debt collector.

As Green Motion have signed up to Resolver, I sent in a formal complaint. Later that day, they responded saying they could do nothing since each Green Motion branch is a separate franchise and they would "provide the franchise owner with feedback regarding this case". Deafening silence since then.

So, my suspicion is someone at Stansted didn't follow their own process last July and someone else only noticed the debt last month when they were preparing year end accounts. Rather than write it off, they called in the heavies. Result is I've paid the GM fee and they have most definitely lost any further repeat business.

But what might happen to the balance of the debt? My gut feeling is no one will come after me since a) GM didn't tell me about it before b) they didn't try to claim the money when I was in their office last month. What do you think? What's the process?
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Ending a DMP

March 26, 2019, 2:29 am
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Hi All,

so im in a position where I want to clear my DMP. I have approx £9K left of a DMP with Stepchange. In total I owe money to 6 creditors, but one of them makes up over 90% of the total debt.
I have sent a CCA request to this creditor and they have responded acknowledging the request but are now beyond the 12 day rule in providing the paperwork.
Im happy to settle the smaller debts in full but I don't want to jeopordise myself by doing so - i.e if I settle the smaller debts do I have a legal responsibility to do the same for the larger debt - even though that one is most likely un-enforceable?

So am I better just telling Stepchange that I plan to manage the DMP on my own before making any offers etc - and what is the process to do so?

And with regard to the larger debt - id rather do a Full and Final settlement with a promise that the debt won't be sold on etc so that im not pestered further down the line by some random DCA claiming they now own the debt - rather than just ignoring it and not paying it.

Hope that makes sense - appreciate im rambling a bit.
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