The Iva Advice Blog

Summary

If you are under pressure from creditors, you need to read this article. It outlines the three main debt advice services and describes the services they offer.

As Wales finance problem spreads, debt advisers are being bombarded by households desperately failing to manage their mortgage repayments, credit cards and loan repayments. There has been a 40% escalation in people behind on payments on secured loans and mortgages say the Government, compared inquiries in 2008. The Consumer Credit Counselling Service, which also offers free debt plans, is receiving 1,500 calls a day, while calls to the National Debtline have gone up by thirty five percent. So, if you are losing sleep over your debt worries can these confidential services will be of assistance?

 The Citizens Advice Bureau (CABs) , who are they?  They area a network of more than 3,200 bureaux around the  Briton run by volunteers. Most of these offices have trained debt manager.CAB (The Citizens Advice Bureau) One of the largest non profit organisations in the Briton equipped to aid in dealing with most challenges faced in everyday life including financial advice.

1. What do the CABs do?   To start with before they can guide you, they need to appreciate your income and outgoings. So they will assist you to construct a list of creditors with income and expenses.

Once this is finished, they will double check whether your profits can be increased. For example, you may not claiming  the right benefits or perhaps you are using the wrong tax code. Then they will examine your family outgoings. They look at your household bills and mortgage repayments to see where you can save money. They look at your family expenses and finance repayments to see where you can save cash. Then they will consider your family expenditure.

Your debts will be divided into priority debts – that’s payments such as rent or mortgage, utilities and council tax – and your non priority ones, such as unsecured loans, credit cards and HP.

You will then be given letters to post to all your creditors requesting them to put action against you on hold pending a repayment plan being agreed.

The debt protectors at the CAB will then help you to negotiate a repayment plan with your priority creditors – your mortgage lender or landlord, local authority and utility companies. The balance of your income after meeting your family’s other living expenses can be offered to non-priority creditors based proportionately on how much you owe to each of them.

As part of the negotiations with unsecured lenders the CAB always asks for the interest and charges to be frozen, but not all creditors agree to it. But their experience is that as long as the offer is fair, creditors know that the Courts will usually support the CABs proposals and so creditors usually accept in the end. The CAB will also help if you are threatened with your house being repossessed and with any other debt related Court action against you.

 The good points: The CABs service is usually face-to-face, which means they can deal with the paperwork with you. They can then sit with you while you speak to your creditors. They may also help you deal with the Courts. And they will provide IVA advice help.

The bad point: As more of us struggle with our finances, their services are stretched, so you may have to wait weeks, even months, for an appointment.

 The Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) – The CCCS mainly operates via telephone and through there website although it is possible to visit one of their 10 regional offices by appointment.

CCCS What do they do? The CCCS will create a financial plan with you to see how much money you really need to live on. Then the remaining money can be used to repay your priority debts and then your non-priority debts. The most serious cases join the CCCs’s debt management programme. The CCCS will then negotiate repayments with the creditors and ask to freeze charges and interest.

Once in a debt management plan, you make one payment each month to the CCCS and they assign and dispense that money between your creditors thereby deducting the entire amount from your debt.

The good points: You can anonymously receive online counselling through a question-and-answer service. Debt management plans are easier to manage than continuing to repay several different creditors yourself.

The bad points: To enter into a debt management plan you have to have enough disposable income after basic living expenses

The National Debtline (ND) – They are the original telephone-based debt guidance service. What do the ND do? The ND send you a form to help your budgeting plus suggested letters to send to your creditors. They can also council you through your credit situation and offer information on what your creditors can do legally and suggest ways you can increase your income.

The good points: The service is quick and packed with constructive information offering assisted self-help.

The bad points: They will not speak to your creditors on your behalf. You are on your own.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

A discharge from bankruptcy means you are released from the limitations of bankruptcy and it releases you from most of the debts owe able at the date of your bankruptcy. Any bills owed under student loan agreements or child support will remain repayable.

In specific, special circumstances, the Official Receiver can appealrequest the Court for a Bankruptcy Restrictions Order. The end result being that you continue to be subject to restrictions after your discharge from bankruptcy for the time period stated in the Court Order. A Bankruptcy Restrictions Order doesn’t effect the discharge of your debts.

How long till I am discharged?

Discharges usually happen after a year. But the Official Receiver can file a Court notice before twelve months are up to state that he has finished his enquiries of your accounts. If accepted, you will be discharged when that notice is filed. When the notice is issued, a copy will be sent to the bankrupt to confirm that they have been discharged.

If the party does not co-operate with the Official Receiver or Insolvency Practitioner, then the Official Receiver or Insolvency Practitioner can petition the Court to delay discharge. For example, if the bankrupt gave incorrect or false details to the Official Receiver or the Trustee.

How do I obtain my discharge?

Normally, the party will be accordingly discharged after 12 months, regardless of how many instalments have been paid to the creditors. If the defendant is discharged automatically, the party does not get sent any paper work to notify their discharge unless specifically requested. Do not write to the Court any sooner than 2 weeks prior to your discharge date, you will get conformation of this about 4 weeks later.

The price for the discharge notice is sixty pounds payable to the court and further copies will cost £1 each. The bankrupt can also request the Official Receiver to advertise your discharge all the advertising charges in advance.

You will not get an automatic discharge if your discharge period has been suspended or the you are subject to a criminal bankruptcy order. If you want more details on this should get in touch the Official Receiver.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Summary

In recent years bankruptcies relating to females have amplified considerably. This article looks at the trends and investigates the reasons.

While concentration has focused on high-profile commercial bankruptcies like that of Cleggs, new statistics declaredby the Bankruptcy Service reveal that scores of people are going bust – and lots and lots of them are women
In the last seven years bankruptcies amongst women intensified by nearly 400%. In truth they now make up forty per cent of all bankruptcies with young ladies under the age of 33 most liable to suffer financial debt .

The data from the Bankruptcy Service publicised that last year 23,176 ladies were declared insolvent, up from only 6,644 in 2001. With gentlemen the figure was 37,975, that’s roughly two hundred and fifty per cent higher than the 15,742 which were declared insolvent in 2001.

This indicates that 5 years ago females made up 31 per cent of bankrupts, but by last year that had increased to thirty eight per cent.

Usually, folks aged between thirty one and forty three are most prone to go bankrupt. But among females it’s the younger ones that are possiblymost at risk, the 27 to34 years of age.

The rapid increase of ladies bankruptcy is may be connected to both overspending when aquiring a loan was too easy and their enhanced vulnerability due to the increasing numbers of women who don’t have the support of family and marriage. It is clear that more women are running up uncontrollable debts as they try to uphold extravagant lifestyles. They want to spend like Victoria Beckham but clearly do not have the income to pay back the debts they run up. It is difficult as they increasingly have to borrow money to get on the property ladder and if they live alone, there’s nobody to split the financial liability.

By and large, some debt management advisers consider that bankruptcyamid females would quickly match levels amongst gentlemen.

However theories by Government Ministers, that women are particularly open to being made redundant were proved wrong by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) last month. It said redundancy within women is running at at 1/2 the rate of men, and a lot more women are protected as a large proportion of them are Government workers.

But the increase in ladies bankruptcy suggest that ladies are suffering for reasons beyond cuts in jobs and pay. Social studies have repetively demonstrated that divorce leaves males much better off than women, mainly because women more often than not take the children.

But if a cohabiting couple split up, the gentleman has no financial commitment to the woman. And between 4 and 5 million Britons share a house.

And a growing number of females have elected to remain on their own either to continue with jobs that may now be suspect, or owing to a benefit system that rewards single mothers but penalises couples.

Most of us get into financial trouble from time to time and some of us rely on our relations to help us out. These bankruptcies amongst females are a product of too manyfemales being alone without financial assistance.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites