Welcome to the forum worriedworrier.

The site itself doesn't choose to comment on trust deed firms other than the four represented here in the forum by Mark, Kevin, Shona and Chris. Other members may have views to share with you.

Some caution on your part is a good thing irrespective of the firm(s) you choose to talk to.

If you'd like to let us know a little about your current circumstances we'll try to offer you some useful feedback.

Hi worried worrier

Welcome to the forum, remember don't be afraid of contacting more than one company and don't commit to anything on first meeting.

Trust Deed Scotland is part of the Kelsom Group so they have arranged a meeting for themselves. I'd go ahead with the meeting but also contact one of the experts on here for a meeting too.

In the mean time while you're waiting write down any questions you think of that you want answering, trust me when your in the meeting you'll forget what you wanted to ask.

Good luck
AB

Hi worriedworrier

My advice to everyone is write down all your questions and ensure you get an exact answer for each. Do not accept ' it might' ' it could/should' etc. under no circumstances sign anything until they have left and sent you a full note of all matters discussed in writing. That will give you your own time to look at all the options ie DAS, Trust Deed and sequestration.

Mark

Thank you for your replies I will try and explain our situation and hopefully it all makes sense!

We currently have 2 unsecured loans in both our names, one we have been paying for 3years and the other we only took out at the start of the year ( this concerns me a bit after reading a post on here about possibility of rejection for fairly new loans) as a consolodation loan to pay off credit cards. We thought taking out this second loan to pay off our other credit cards would have helped us however this has not been the case which is why we find ourselves looking into taking out a Trust Deed as we are barely managing to keep our heads above water these last few months. We are currently paying £209 per month to the 1st loan and still have 4 years to pay on this and we pay £211 on the 2nd loan with 5.5years still to pay 🙁 We also have a couple of catalogue accounts, finance on a settee, and an overdraft aswell as car finance. The problem being that most of the credit is in both names however there are a couple of things just in my name and some just in my husbands and I was told today that you cannot sign for a Trust Deed in joint names...is this correct? We both work (me part-time and my husband full time) and we rent our home and have no mortgage/equity/savings. We also have 2children 8 & 2. This is such a worrying time for us and we both feel a bit stupid really that we have let things get out of hand....we have not yet defaulted any payments however some months we have had to pay our debts over our rent and with more and more letters arriving from the council I feel like we can't carry on any longer the way we are going.

just realised I put no amounts we are actually owe...I think our debt in total comes to around £22000

Hi worriedworrier

I dont think the debts themselves will be an issue, it probably boils down to level of contribution.

From the information Trust Deed and DAS appear to both be workable. You would both need to sign separate trust deeds, however the DAS could be joint.

Mark

Thanks Mark

The person I spoke to said because I'm only working part-time and not earning much I would need to do something called a LILA? I have never heard of this word before is this something you have heard of?

Hi worriedworrier

LILA is Low Income Low Asset bankruptcy. Its a method of applying for bankruptcy when the income is below a certain level and there are no real assets as such.

Mark

Take advice from more than one source. And dont anything without reading things 3 times!!!

Paul

Hi, we started down this route with Trust Deed Scotland / Kelsom. Our actual trustee is a company called Knightsbridge who are in Manchester, Kelsom just do a referral to them for a fee.

We hadn't heard of TDs really, until being aware of them from the radio and didn't find this forum until later.

Started the process right at the beginning of Feb and as of around June 3/4 our TD was protected. The process took way longer than we were told - partly due to our slightly complicated circumstances and then also I think there was a big radio campaign which no doubt led to a big spike in business.

So far, no real gripes with them. They went through the things about cars / assets valued at more than £3k and looked at the equity in the house. We did pay an extra months contribution to 'protect' the equity (ie. NOT have to raise any extra money at the end of the TD) and from reading posts on here it seems that might have been unnecessary. But at the time we were both feeling pretty vulnerable no doubt like many others at the start.

As others have said, get all your questions lined up and make sure you get clear unambiguous answers before proceeding. Have a search through the forum - there is a post somewhere which lists a few 'standard' questions to ask.

Thank you for all your replies...I think I am definitely going to have a look around rather than jump feet first with the only company I have spoken to! I love this forum aswell I'm so glad I have found it before commiting myself to anything. Thanks again everyone.