Do You Need Help With Debt? Debt Management might help
If you need help with debt at the moment then one of the solutions that you might consider could be a debt management plan.
These are now big business and some companies have tens of thousands of clients on their books. It is estimated that in 2009, 330,000 people will have a formal debt management plan with a professional company. Many hundreds of thousands more will be doing their own temporary plans with their lenders, some offering as little as £1 a month.
A professional debt management plan is run by a company with a Consumer Credit Licence. A company should not offer debt advice without such a licence.
As a professional business the usual debt management company will also levy a fee for its services. Typically you can expect to pay your first monthly payment as a set up fee and then about 15% of each subsequent monthly payment as a management fee which helps pay for the work that is done on your behalf each month.
For their money the debt management company will undertake a full income and expenditure analysis with you. This is to ascertain how much disposable income you have. It is the disposable income which will form the basis of the offer that you make to your creditors.
It is the debt management company's skill and relationship with your creditors which gives you the opportunity to have your offer of payment accepted. If the creditors are happy that you are making a reasonable offer based upon the cash that you have available, they will be happy to accept reduced monthly payments on the understanding that these will be made every month on time.
They will do this as they will not have to chase you each month for payments of varying amounts and therefore the costs of managing your account falls considerably.
Once your payment amount is set, you will set up a direct debit with the debt management company and when the money comes in to them, they deduct their fee and send the balance, pro rata to your creditors.
As long as payments are made each month the creditor will usually be happy to freeze interest and charges.
- If you feel that you would benefit from talking to someone about debt management, a quick search of the internet should reveal plenty of companies to talk to.
