any feedback would be appreciated

[delsey33]

good afternoon, i hope someone can give me some advice. we arnt able to go for an iva at present as we do not have enough disposable income, (debt of 100k) so we're with a debt managemment company called byrom and keeley, but struggling to make the £600 a month payments, disposable is about £300, husband is self employed and it varies from month to month.

cutting a long story short, we were approached by a company called spectrum who told us we can make payments of around £200 a month, after their fees of £1800 over the next 3 months. this is all well and good, and i understand i will never get out of debt like this, but my main concern is with not paying the debts over the next 3 months, and getting letters from the court, i had one yesterday from northern rock, and wonder would i be better off offering the money direct to my creditors myself? i could start straight away. following a phone call from mbna, they have agreed to freeze all interest for a year if i pay them £100 a month (10k debt) is this likely to be the case if i approach the other creditors?

any feedback would by appreciated
many thanks in advance

[scaredkez]

hi and welcome to the forum, firstly i would say steer clear of spectrum they have been investigated on watch dog, contact cccs or payplan who are free, and get an opinion off them, if you don't mind me asking who are your creditors?
not all your creditors will agree to freeze interest and you may find that they want you to pay more than you can afford, the 2 companies above my be able to help you submit a more realistic DMP but with debts you have you have to be honest with yourself they are going to take years and years to pay off, have you any assets?
if you think you may be able to eventually go for an iva approach one of the companies listed on this site for advice, have you had all the information on iva's and what they entail?
you need to sit down also and work out what your realistic disposable income is each month and post it here to see if we can give you anymore advice.
kerri

Please view my blog at: http://scaredkez.blogs.iva.co.uk/

[MelanieGiles]

Hi delsey

As Kerri says, do you have any assets which would be at risk in bankruptcy? Own you own home with equity? Doing a DMP with payments going out of £300 per month against £100,000 of debt is going to take forever to repay.

Could you post details of which debts are yours, which are your husbands and which are joint, together with details of your individual incomes, so that we can advise further.

Regards, Melanie Giles, Insolvency Practitioner for over 20 years.

For further details contact me at http://www.melaniegiles.com and view my IVA blog at: http://melaniegiles.blogs.iva.co.uk

[delsey33]

thankyou for your replies, we have a mortgage of 153k on a house worth 175k, it is interest only. no secured loans.

joint debts =
northern rock - 30k
natwest - 30k
bank of scotland - 7k

husbands debts =
mbna - 10k
capital bank - 10k

my debts =
ge money - 6k
black horse - 5k
index - 2k

i receive £800 tax credits/child benefit per month, husband on average £1400 take home per month.
we looked at an iva, but needed in the region of £800 a month for that to work. bankruptcy sometimes seems the only option, but the thought of losing the house scares me. the only way out that i can see is doing a dmp until our situation changes and then remortgaging in the future if at all possible to offer full and final settlement.
many thanks for reading.

[MelanieGiles]

As you are paying your mortgage on an interest only basis - which is almost the same as renting your own property, do you not feel that selling the property and moving into rented accomodation is a better option.

You have equity of £22k which will reduce to approximately £15k after costs of sale and relocation expenses are taken into account. You could use this as an initial payment into either an IVA or bankruptcy proceedings, and them make monthly payments of £300 per month for a three or five year period.

I hesitate to recommend an IVA, due to the magnum of your Northern Rock loan and that company's current policy on IVAs generally, but it may be worth a try - failing which you could then consider bankruptcy or DMPs.

Regards, Melanie Giles, Insolvency Practitioner for over 20 years.

For further details contact me at http://www.melaniegiles.com and view my IVA blog at: http://melaniegiles.blogs.iva.co.uk