If you are in informal debt solution client and we have received your monthly disposable income on the agreed date, your creditors will automatically receive payment from us each month. We will send you a statement listing each of your creditors and how much they have been paid. If a creditor tells you they have not been paid, you can refer back to this statement or if you are in any doubt please contact us.
Explain that we are acting on our behalf and will be making proposals for payment in due course. Get a name and telephone number from the creditor and contact us with it. We will then contact the creditor and update them on your case.
You can open an account with any bank that you don't owe money to. You need to tell them that all you require is a basic bank account that you can pay money into and set up direct debits or standing orders for bill payments. You do not require an overdraft or chequebook or cheque card but do need a cash card for ATM cash withdrawals.
If we already have contact details for the solicitor or debt collecting agent you do not need to send us the letter. If it is from someone saying that they have had the debt passed to them to deal with then you need to send it to us as soon as possible.
If we tell you that we have contacted a creditor we will have evidence of that contact both in document form and our record file that we have for you on our database. Some creditors may say that they have not heard from us in order to put pressure on you to make a payment to them. Simply get a contact name and telephone number from the creditor and we will contact them to confirm when and how we have contacted them.
You do not have to agree to this. Simply inform us who the creditor is and we will contact them on your behalf and explain what your intentions are.
Usually bailiffs can only become involved if you have stopped making payments after a County Court Judgement has been issued. Some creditors will mention bailiffs as a scare tactic to get you to make payment. If you are not sure what to do, please contact us.
If we already have contact details for the solicitor or debt collecting agent you do not need to send us the letter. If it is from someone saying that they have had the debt passed to them to deal with then you need to send it to us as soon as possible.
Creditors will only usually threaten court action if they have been unable to get any response from you regarding an outstanding debt. As a client you can be sure that regular contact is maintained with your creditors informing them fully regarding what particular stage we have reached with your case and when they are likely to receive payment. This means that court action is unlikely.
If we are already dealing with the particular creditor you do not need to send us the letter. However, if the content of the letter causes you concern, please do not hesitate in contacting us.
You must continue to make payments as agreed with the court. We will make an allowance for any payments you make by including them in your regular expenditures. If you are a legal debt solution client entering into an I.V.A. or a Protected Trust Deed, once that arrangement is in place and not before, you will stop making payments. You will be told when this happens.
You will in due course receive correspondence from the company that the debt has been passed on to. This will usually be a third party debt collecting agent or the debt collecting division of a firm of solicitors. When this happens you need to send the correspondence to us as soon as possible so that we can contact them to inform them of your current circumstances.
In the unlikely event of this happening we will simply transfer your case to our informal debt solutions department, arrange to meet with you again so that you fully understand what this means and continue acting for you in all dealings with your creditors. We will carry out annual reviews and if your circumstances change so that a legal solution becomes a possibility once more we will advise you accordingly.
You need to inform us immediately if you have another creditor to add to the ones we already know about. Failure to disclose all creditors can jeopardise any agreement whether legal or informal that we make with your creditors.