reducing payments without IVA or bankruptcy

[tony.m]

will banks and loan companies agree to reduce payments to an individual to help manage thier finances when they are in trouble without going into IVA or bankrupcy

[Anna]

Tony - it very much depneds on individual and their bank/cc company.

I was climbing the walls today as called my bank (Abbey) trying to sort something out with them.

I have a loan with them with about 13200 remaining and credit card with 8000 on it (via Abbey but it is the dreaded MBNA cc). The total monthly repayements for the 2 come to almost 600 from which 130 is interest only on the cc (I am not repaying anything as can not afford to since MBNA played dirty on me increasing my APR from 15.9 to 26% and only after daily phone calls for a month went down to 21% which is still hell lot more than the original 15.9% the CC was on. Nope, never missed a apyment, but they have the right to increase APR as they wish).

Anyway, tried to get a loan to cover the current one and add 8k cc balance to it + spread over 8 years (current loan got 3 more years to go) which would mean lowering monthly payments from 600 to 378 per month.

Got a standard "Computer says NO" - as apparently I could not afford it.....


Jesusssssssssssss - how come I could not afford repayments which are half of my current ones?

Anyway - sorry for long post.

The short answer is you will never know till you try.

Hope you have a better luck, I am looking at IVA at the moment[}:)]

[Skippy]

You got off lightly Anna - MBNA increased my APR to 29.9%!

Onwards and upwards!!!
View my blog at: http://skippy13.blogs.iva.co.uk/

[Aaron_]

Hi, I called all my creditors, below, but in the end none of them reduced their rates...so they lost out really...

Egg
BOS
Northern Rock
Virgin (MBNA)

I even went to Northern Rock (biggest creditor) to explain my situation, told them I was already paying them £265 a month and if they could help me by arranging a new loan for £23,000 over 7 year to cover everything, for something like £300 a month it was, and they weren't willing to help. Now i'm paying slightly less in to an IVA.

It's crap how lenders can just increase their rates...I reckon something like 90% of people has their salary paid in to their bank account, which banks pay what 5% pa interest to us??? Yet if we want a credit card they charge something like 15%??? Why do they need to increase this?? Why not pay us more in the first place? Something is wrong here and needs to be put right!!!!!

[Anna]

I was shocked when MBNA waited for me to have the balance of 7k and then raised the APR from 15.9 to 26.9%.

Thought it was a mistake as why? Never missed a payment etc etc..

Called them - they would not go down, said "we have sent you a letter".

I have never received a letter to be honest - checked with various "governing bodies" and yup, they actually have the right to do whatever they want as APR is VARIABLE.

The are happy to variate up but not down.

After longgggggggggggggg negotiaitons and phone calls EVERY day, they went down to 21.9 but .. they can go up any moment.

AM- I have tried the same as you. None of my creditors would allow lower payments/stretching over longer time etc.


http://anna.blogs.iva.co.uk/

[neverending]

Tony
They can do,generally if you have short term problems then you can get reduced payments but these missed amounts will be tagged on at a later date.
If your problem is long term then you could look into a Debt management plan,you agree a monthly fee to pay off all your creditors,in full,over several years using a debt management company,there are some on this site and it would pay you to discuss all options with them.

[MelanieGiles]

Tony

The answer to your question is "yes", but your success will depend upon the number of individual creditors you will have to negotiate with. They may all require differing levels of repayment, and you do need to be careful not to prefer anyone.

Regards, Melanie Giles, Insolvency Practitioner for over 20 years.

For further details contact me at http://www.melaniegiles.com and view my IVA blog at: http://melaniegiles.blogs.iva.co.uk