Hi Random27 and welcome to the forum.

It think it may be difficult to secure a consolidation loan for £17,000. If you were successful you would also need to consider the level of interest and how much you would pay back all together. It could cost you £22,000 to £25,000 in total including interest.

An alternative to a loan is a Debt Arrangement Scheme. This is a plan whereby you put all of your debts into it and make 1 monthly payment until your debts are repaid in full. The plan timescale is determined by how much you could pay per month. I suppose it could be looked at as an unsecured loan.

A Trust Deed can be an effective way of clearing your debts and writing off a proportion of them also. I wouldn't automatically rule this out. A good Expert can discuss this with you.

Both of those plans will have an impact on your credit rating so this is something you need to be mindful of.

Do you own any assets such as a house or car?

The best way forward is to speak with an Expert about all of your options. Kevin or I the two experts on the forum would be happy to do this with you. Whoever you deal with you need to ensure that they explain all your options, the pros and cons and that they have an office in Scotland and will be the company dealing with your plan if that's the route.

The positive thing is you will have solutions to help you deal with your debts. It's just picking the right solution for you.

Thank you for your help, i appreciate it. Its just so frustrating to think that a trust deed is an option when we have the ability to pay everyone in full. Its just gotten to the point where everything is being paid to my bills but it doesnt seem to be making a difference. Im in a rented property and my car is on a three year pcp deal which is due to end in 6 months.

Can you tell me what would cause the least damage to my credit score, the trust deed or das?

Hi Random27,

Your welcome. I guess that's one of the benefits of a forum like this is even out of normal office hours your able to get good advice.

I'm not an expert on credit ratings but here is my understanding on things... Someone might correct me if I'm wrong.

In a Trust Deed your credit rating is affected for a minimum of 6 years from the start of the Trust Deed. An official default notice will generally be placed on your credit file by a creditor and this remains in place for 6 years then falls off. There is a post on the forum from mapleleaf about this recently and about how they are looking to move house etc. It shows that there is life after a Trust Deed and it isn't nessesarily a bad thing. After the 6 years all of the negative information should fall off. If after your 4 year Trust Deed you try to rebuild your credit rating back up by taking out credit and paying this back successfully this will help things improve quicker than they would if you didn't do anything.

If you did a 4 year Trust Deed paying for example £150 per month you would repay £7,200 and £9,800 would be written off and after 6 years your credit rating should have started to repair.

Under a DAS from what I understand your credit rating may be affected for the full duration of the plan even although you are repaying your debts in full. The reason being is you are not making your contractual repayments on a monthly basis and as a result this will have the negative impact and this will last until the plan completes. Even then there could still be some time for the negative information to fall off. The average DAS lasts 7 years and what I would say is that not enough information is shared about the impact this has on credit ratings. It's only over the last couple of years that the number of people entering into DAS has increased. A lot of what I have learned is from people completing their Trust Deeds and coming back onto the forum to share this information with us.

If for example you could pay £150 then your DAS would take 9.4 years to repay back and therefore a minimum of 9.4 years is how long your credit rating could be affected for.

It's examples like this and different scenarios that a good Expert would discuss with you along with the pros and cons of all of your options.

What is your intention when your PCP agreement ends in 6 months, will you take out another one?

Hello Random27.

I'd suggest you take some direct advice sometime soon.

Knowing for sure what options are necessary, suitable, or feasible will assist you to make more definite plans for your future.

There's nothing wrong in wanting to pay everyone back in full, and as David says a DAS payment programme would probably be the best way to do that. However, it is likely to adversely affect your credit file for longer - and in fact you are not allowed to take on any other credit whilst in a DAS, you have to repay your debts in full before you can think about taking on any new ones.

I suppose it is about weighing up which feels most important to you - paying off your debts in full, or moving in from the situation you are in more quickly.