IVA was a non starter. what is the best way to approach my creditors and start paying them back pro rata....
Basically I want to be looking at a DMP, but sorting it out myself ... Do I have to send them all my I&E, or should I write and explain the situation and offer them a fixed sum for as long as possible ??
Any suggestions would be, as ever, greatly appreciated.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
if you want to set up a dmp yourself you can. you may find your creditors will try to scare you with all sorts though. You will have to send each creditor your full I&E and also send each creditor each of the other creditors outstanding balance and your proposed monthly payment as this will have to be made fair to all creditorseg they all get 50% of their normal monthly payment. You can also ask your creditors to freeze the interest being applied to each account. The added benfits of doing a dmp is you may be able to save a little each month and ask creditors for early settlement figures and maybe pay them off a little earlier than you thought, the other benefit is you wont have to pay any fee's to a debt company to sort it out for you
Hi
Send them an income and expenditure form with a pro-rata offer of payment.
I fear that you will have mixed results and may be better using a third party to manage your plan
Good luck
Regards
The site I posted has template letters that you can write to your creditors.
However, as Andy says, it might be better to use a company to help you.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
Hi Mark, good luck with the self-managed DMP. Let us know how you get on as it will be great for other people thinking about a DMP. I would love to see you make this work! If creditors don't stop interest and charges, it may work out cheaper to employ someone to manage the dmp for you (so long as they can get the interest etc frozen).
I used templates and advice from the national debtline website to negotiate significantly reduced payments with my creditors. All agreed (and froze interest) quickly except one, who just ignored my letters. At this point I handed everything over to CCCS as I decided I wanted someone else to have the ongoing management of it (interest is now frozen by all creditors). That said, certainly in the first instance I felt rather empowered by handling it all myself.
There is no reason why you should not take this on yourself and I wish you well if you do so.
Be ready for the debt management plan to be an ongoing task rather than something which can be set up and then left to run.
Creditors will want to review any agreements from time to time, often on a three, six or twelve monthly basis.
Some creditors may say no to your offer, only to accept it later when it is transfered to another internal department.
Some creditors may say yes to your offer, then pass the debt to a debt collection agency with whom you will then need to set up a new arrangement.
Debts may also be sold at some point, and a new agreement will need to be made with the debt purchaser.
Of course none of this is insurmountable provided you remain prepared to continue working on the situation. You may well feel that the work is worthwhile in order to take control of your own destiny and potentially save a debt management fee.
Andrew Graveson
Bright Oak Ltd
UK Debt Management Company
Website: www.brightoak.co.uk
