balance tansfer

[antony]

Hi This is a weird one so wasnt sure where to post it.

I spoke with an advisor yesterday and we have got about 30% of our 96k debt (17.5k wife 14.5k me) with mbna which may mean our iva would be rejected.

My wife has a balance transfer (7.2k balance 14k limit) offer from sainsburys bank where we could put 3k or so of my mbna debt on it to bring down the mbna %. No equity in house and no paperwork filed yet so do you think it would be worth doing. our other debtors would be barclays, barclaycard sainsburys and capital one.

we have informed her mbna account she cant pay them and my barclaycard accounts but capital one, sainsburys and my mbna are unaware of our proposed payment issues until later this month.

or would our recent history of account usage go against us as well.

Thanks

[Viki.W]

Hi antony, you shouldn't transfer a debt to another lender knowing that you can't repay it. Were you advised about a debt management plan and bankruptcy?

[size5]

I would have to say to you not to consider doing that as it is indirectly prioritisng one creditor over another. You are saying, in effect, that whilst you know you are struggling/insolvent you are willing to run up more debt to one creditor to keep another happy. I hope that makes sense to you?

It is by no means certain that MBNA will reject of course so you may be worrying unnecessarily, although they do tend to prefer DMP's if the suggested level of contribution would see the balance cleared in 10 years or less, assuming interest freeze on a DMP.

To put your mind at rest though, I would certainly say that another call to your provider with this query is in order.

Regards.

[Blair Endersby]

I would not suggest that you ever take out credit without the intention of paying it back in full, this would be looked upon very badly if you ever went bankrupt and could even be a criminal offence.

MBNA do accept some IVAs if they can not be paid back within 125 months so it will depend on what your offer is, but if you can pay it back within this time then you could do a DMP and reassess your payments to see whether the dmp is working or whether MBNAs position changes under pressure from the IVA standing committee.

[kalla]

Sainsbury's banker's are the RBS....there will be a record of the balance transfer you are thinking of making and could be picked up as an excuse by other creditors to say to NO the IVA.

Creditors now share data between them over debtors more so than we think- this has been stepped up and so I can't see how the tranfer can be 'hidden'. Always be impartial when dealing with creditors...any sign of Partially then it will work against you, especially now in a time of BUST.

Creditors go through a person's history in their IVA deliberation - they are looking for an excuse For and excuse Against IVA approvals, so don't give them any ammunition.

Even if you do MBNA the 'favour' would you be certain they would vote YES for your IVA??? Or that they might turn around and even say -"well you can surely pay the outstanding balance in the DMP so we'll vote NO! And would you like another consolidatory loan"?

Creditors are wolfs in sheeps clothing....

[MelanieGiles]

Have you made contact with an insolvency practitioner yet, and if so what advice did they give you? It is correct that MBNA do reject a large number of IVA proposals, but they also accept a large number as well. It is definately worth exploring the options, and I definately agree that you should not exercise any balance transfers once you have acknowledged that you are insolvent.

[kallis3]

I would give another couple of IP's a ring and see what they say. It can't hurt, and you might get better advice than you have at the moment.

Check out the experts page on here, there are a lot who post on here, Melanie, Andy, Vikiw, to name a few.

It'll cost you nothing to talk to them.