Please support us, buy through our webshop
|
Step 5 - Negotiating with your Creditors It is important that any priority debts are dealt with first. Immediate contact should be made with the creditor to prevent any action being taken. It doesn't matter whether you have a priority debt of £75.00 and a non-priority debt of £5,000 -the priority debt must be dealt with first, even though the amount owed to the non-priority is a larger amount. You should call your priority creditors straight away and make sure that you know who to pay, when to pay and how much is owed. If you are unable to make a definite offer of repayment, then you should ask whether you could have more time to sort your finances out. You may wish to seek further help from a Citizens Advice Bureaux. For more information on where to get FREE help and advice, please click here. Once you have negotiated to repay your priority creditors on a regular basis, you can use this information to complete your personal budget. For tips on how to draw up your personal budget, please click here Preparing a financial statement Before negotiating with your creditors you should prepare a financial statement to send to them. Similar to your personal budget sheet, a financial statement is a document that shows your financial situation. Although you can send your personal budget to a creditor, we would strongly recommend that you send a financial statement instead. This is because the financial statement should give a more general illustration of your situation, rather than going into the more detailed aspects of your personal spending habits. If your creditors can see that you do not have money available to repay them in full, they may realise that it's not worth taking legal action against you to recover the debt, and may be more willing to accept a less drastic solution, such as freezing interest and suspending your repayments for a period of time, so that you can concentrate on repaying your priority debts. |
|
|
Deciding on your Options Once you have either your personal budget sheet or a financial statement ready to send to your creditors, you now need to decide on how you intend to proceed. The results from your personal budget will help dictate which options you have available as it will depend on whether or not you have any money in your budget to pay your creditors. For more guidance click on www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/debt_advice.php#3 | |
