Hi Plummy,
My trust deed took a week or so with a visit from my Trustee also. It was all explained to me and I then signed the relevant paperwork, I paid my first monthly instalment after 6 weeks of signing. I would think if you have not signed anything then I would not pay this ?ú258.00 as yet. Hope this helps.

Hi plummy,

I'm not at all sure that you are dealing with a Trust Deed company directly; my quick search on the web could not find an insolvency firm with this name.

You may be dealing with an agent to whom you are paying upfront fees. If this is the case your details may be passed to a Trustee further down the line for the actual process of starting the Trust Deed to get underway.

If that is the case you will be spending money you do not need to spend, will be repaying debt for longer than you need to, and will have an interim period of legal exposure that could be avoided.

Perston seems to have the same concern... normally Trust Deed payments would start at the time of signing the Trust Deed.

You may wish to contact this company to ask them whether they are handling the Trust Deed themselves and the name of the Insolvency Practitioner that will be your Trustee. Until then I would also suggest that you do not pay any fee.

Please let us know how you get on.

Hi perston
thanks for your reply. Sorry I should've said that I did sign a form stating that this company could contact my creditors so I have just phoned the company involved and they say that they are in the process of contacting my creditors and the 258q is my first instalment and depending on how long it takes to gather in my creditors, it could take between 3 and 6 weeks. A few months ago I was a day away from signing for a PTD with Baines & Ernst but decided to do some research on them and found out they were the worst to deal with so maybe am being just a wee bit sceptical...........cheers

quote:

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Originally posted by Trust Deed Assistant

Hi plummy,

I'm not at all sure that you are dealing with a Trust Deed company directly; my quick search on the web could not find an insolvency firm with this name.

You may be dealing with an agent to whom you are paying upfront fees. If this is the case your details may be passed to a Trustee further down the line for the actual process of starting the Trust Deed to get underway.

If that is the case you will be spending money you do not need to spend, will be repaying debt for longer than you need to, and will have an interim period of legal exposure that could be avoided.

Perston seems to have the same concern... normally Trust Deed payments would start at the time of signing the Trust Deed.

You may wish to contact this company to ask them whether they are handling the Trust Deed themselves and the name of the Insolvency Practitioner that will be your Trustee. Until then I would also suggest that you do not pay any fee.

Please let us know how you get on.

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Thank you for that answer. Even though I signed saying that they could contact my creditors, does that mean am I bound to them or am I free to seek help elsewhere?

Hi plummy,

You are free to seek help from whichever organisation you feel is best placed to assist you.

Our advice, based upon the experience of contributants to this forum for a long period of time, is that it would be best to go direct to a firm that which actually handle the Trust Deed for you.

Three good companies are represented on this site and there are plenty of others out there as well.

Hi Plummy,

I am a bit confused, are you saying that what you signed was not a trust deed but was to allow this company to contact your creditors only, in that case it would not be a trust deed but maybe a debt plan? Maybe the trust deed people could add to it, but it does seem a little strange.

Hi plummy

This sound like the company who advertise in the papers every other day. It sounds like an up front fee and after the 2 payments are made, they will pass you to a real IP firm.

As stated earlier, | certainly wouldn't make any payment.

As for timing the process is initial meeting with IP or senior staff. The discussions at the meeting should then be put in writing expalining the whole process and then you decide which way to proceed. The timescale can be a few days to 3-4 weeks max. The timing should be entirely up to you.

Hope this helps

Mark

Thanks everyone for your help. It is very much appreciated and very welcome. I'm going to show all this information to my partner tonight but I think I know what my next step is going to be and it won't be paying 556q which I can barely afford!
Thanks again

Hi plummy

No problem. Glad to help.

Mark

Just another wee question - how does this affect my credit rating once the PTD is over? I was once told that my credit rating goes back to where it was when I was 18 - is this correct?
Cheers

Hi there

my understanding is that it will affect your credit rating for 6 years from the date of the start of the Trust Deed.

Not sure abouth the 18 bit though.

Mark

Hi plummy,

The idea that, at the end of a Trust Deed, your credit rating returns to how it was when you were 18 is a lie often peddled by those who seek to "sell" Trust Deeds rather than provide good proper advice.

As Mark says a Trust Deed will remain visible on your credit file for a period of six years and this will have a significant effect on the availability and cost of credit during that time.

There are however things that can be done to start to help rehabilitate your credit score once the Trust Deed has completed.

It was the firm that wanted ?ú500+ from me up front that told me that little nugget about my credit rating.......funny that eh?

Anyway, had a good and informative chat with Julie this morning so now will wait for the paperwork to come through and hopefully start getting myself back on track very soon.

Cheers

Hi Plummy

Thankfully you found this site before you paid any upfront fees.

Unfortunately we didnt, and paid two upfront payments totalling ?ú700, before we seeked financial advice from a local authority non-profit advisor, who then put us in touch with a genuine IP firm.

We were left out of pocket of that amount, which could have went towards our Trust Deed, rather than lining the pockets of these people. I'd rather have given it to a charity than had given it to them, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I am now on a protected trust deed with AMI Financial Solutions and I cant praise them high enough, they duly came to our house for an interview re my finances (which the other lot didnt) and I am grateful I got the right advice before I went any further with these robbers. Btw they were working in favour of KPMG. Because of this I wouldnt recommend this complany to anyone.

Good luck with your own application.