www.iva.co.uk

My partner andI have decided to go down the DMP route for the time being. A bit worried but my parents have offered to help as much as they can - so fingers crossed. Anyone out there in one to let me know if most of the interest etc is frozen?

Hi Julie,

When I was in a DMP, all of my interest and charges were frozen, but that's not always the case.

We used a fee charging firm, so I don't know if that makes any difference or not.

We started our dmp back at the end of last year and now have had interest frozen by all but two creditors (HSBC have reduced it and Bank of Scotland have done nothing(!)) - everyone else has been helpful and after an initial flurry of calls and letters we now hear very little from any of them. We have used Vincent Bond though and they have always chased up anything we've needed them to.

Thanks very much - I am keeping my fingers crossed! My parents want to use equity in their house to pay debts but I refused - awful thought put to me by my dad that if I have to pay for 10+ years it will be OK as they won't be around by then and my inheritance will pay them off!! I was not very happy as I would rather have them here!! Still I think this will be the best option for us at the moment until the economy picks up and we are thinking of selling our house and getting a smaller mortgage so this will give us some more time to look around - if all goes well !!

Have you considered borrowing sufficient from your parents to fund a one off IVA? Such arrangements are not uncommon and it could be worth discussing this with an IP firm.

Michael makes a good suggestion there, I have done quite a few of one off cases recently, but in answer to the original question if a DMP is the right way to go then creditors are generally very good at freezing interest, although there is no absolute guarantee.

Regards.

I have gone down the DMP route with payplan who does not charge you a fee for DMP and we have been with them since April and so far the creditors I have has done the following: -

Sky Card £ 3560 – frozen interest
Barclaycard £ 1480 – frozen interest
Barclaycard £ 780 – frozen interest
Argos card £ 845 – frozen interest
Capital One £ 930 – frozen interest
Asda Credit card (now santander cards) £ 470 – frozen interest
MBNA £ 4250 – frozen interest
Virgin Credit Card £ 2850 – Frozen interest

paypal credit card £ 1,500 payplan has had all payment made to them returned and letters returned it seems that they were sending them to the wrong address and account due to a changeover, the paypal credit card has now been taken over by santander and they finally got into contact with them this month and they have now had the offer letter so hopefully they will freeze the interest soon.


The only pain in the (well you know what) has been HSBC we have a debt with them spread over a loan, credit card and overdraft totalling £ 15,000 after months of saying that they have had no contact with payplan and have received no letters even though I handed them the offer letter from payplan in person at the branch and got a receipt they still insisted they did not receive it! They finally got back to me a few days ago and offered me a “managed loan” the loan repayments will be the same as the offer payment I sent them but they will charge interest of 1.5% per annum.
Payplan has said its a good offer but if I refuse they believe HSBC will sell the debt on to a collection agency called metropolitan who they believe will accept the offer and freeze interest.


Overall creditors do tend to freeze interest but you must be prepared to wait for them to do this and accept phone calls from them chasing you for payment until this is done (especially HSBC who phoned us 3 times a day every day for 2 months and were very rude and not sympathetic!). Saying that I only had one phone call from SKY card and after I explained I was going through payplan they said they will put the calls on hold until they received the letter, MBNA phoned once a week but was quite happy to wait to hear from payplan. The rest of my creditors only sent letters.

You have been very lucky then lee - a lot of posters have had problems with creditors freezing interest when they have been with either Payplan or CCCS.

I hope it continues to go well for you.

Hi

I have been on a dmp with cccs for almost 18 months now all interest and charges were frozen from the offset and I have never had any hassle from any creditors up to yet long may it continue. I think I have been very fortunate I believe not everybody seems to have an easy ride. I am hoping probably along with many others that the statutory debt management plans will be put into play soon as it will then offer similar guarantees as do the ivas.

Thanks very much for that - I have had a offer of DMP from Abacus but am a bit worried about their charges as this is less that you are paying off - I have been led to believe that creditors prefer fee paying companies rather than Payplan does anyone know if this is correct?

Hi

I think it depends on wether the creditor feels it is a fair offer and you are doing the best you can. I was with a fee paying company before going with cccs and they didn't contact my creditors or do anything like cccs do. I felt they were in it for the money trying to persuade us to pay alot less back to the crediors so the plan would go on longer and they would make more money out of it was in unfair as they are meant,t to be helping you. Saying that all companies are different and it is not the same company that you are using. At the end of the day it boils down to to wether or not you are happy with the service being provided to you regardless of wther you pay for it or not.

I was with a fee paying company before switching to an IVA and I have nothing but praise for them. Ok, I was paying them but they earned their money - had no hassle with creditors at all.

You will pay back the whole amount you owed - the fees are on top of that.

If you use Payplan or CCCS then the creditors pay them so you whilst you pay the full amount across, the creditors give some back to them.

Hi
Both non paying and fee paying companies can work well, as you can see from the above posts You just need to make sure that whatever company you use is proactive in dealing with your creditors as having interest frozen is so important. Also affordability is just as important as a DMP should be reasonably comfortable otherwise you will run into difficulty early on.
Generally with fee paying DMP companies you are paying for a service and should ensure that the service lives upto your expectations.
Finally be sure that any company, free or charging explores all options, bankruptcy,DRO, IVA or DMP.

Regards