Welcome to the trust deed forum MrandMrsBroke.

All unsecured debts must be included in a trust deed, so overdrafts and an unsecured loan attached to your mortgage would be included.

Car finance secured on a car cannot be included, but an allowance can be made for you to keep a reasonable car if you have need for one.

There are three trust deed companies represented on this site by Kevin, Shona and Mark each of which we feel good about and each of which previous site visitors have given great feedback. There are plenty of other good trust deed firms as well.

There are plenty of reasons why trust deeds might not be the best option for you, but please don't worry about that as there will be options for you to consider even if trust deeds aren't one of them.

Could you tell us how much debt each of you has individually, and how much any joint debts add up to?

Are you homeowners? Is there any equity in your home?

Do you both work?

Hi MrandMrsbroke

In answer to the car point, if you signed a Trust Deed and handed it back shortly after, then any shortfall or balance would be included in the Trust Deed.

Re the loan from your mortgage company, I'm guessing it is a Northern Rock 'together' loan. If it is not secured, then yes it can be included.

Hope this helps

Mark

I am with RSM tenon and have found them good to work with and whenever I have had a question I have had any emails answered within 24 hours.

If you are going for a trust deed get a basic bank account set up(ASAP) with someone you dont owe money to(I use a co-op cashminder,live nowhere near a branch but the account has served me well for over 3 years!).
This is especially if you have an active overdraft as this will be included but as soon as your bank gets a whiff of trust deed,you wont get near any money in the account,or be able to use the overdraft. This time of year pay dates may be different and you dont want your wages going into an account you cannot access. We ended up £700 down as we messed up not getting a new account opened fast enough and lloydstsb wouldnt allow us into the overdraft.

I have never looked back since starting the trust deed,we were never going to get out of the mess we were in without donning a pair of tights(on head) and going to the bank with a shotgun in hand.

We 1st discussed our options with out local citizens advice bureau,free and good advice although you may have to wait some time to see the right person as they are very busy.

Paul

Thanks plasticdaft, some good advice (and not just the bit about RSM Tenon!!!)
To MrandMrsBroke, my advice would be to be very careful to get the position with your house clarified before signing up to anything. Good insolvency practitioners will pay for a valuation to be done in advance of signing to avoid any nasty surprises.

Firstly thank you to everyone for your quick and helpful replies. This is all new territory to us and we are very unsure how it all works.

We have approx. £47,000 of debt, £30,000 of which is the unsecured loan tied into our Northern Rock mortgage. The rest is store cards, catalogues, overdrafts etc.

We have only lived in our house for 4 years and are pretty sure that there is no equity in it, in the current climate I doubt we would even get what we paid for it.

We are very keen to get set up with a trust deed and wonder how quickly this could be done as we would like to start the ball rolling before Christmas.

Hello MrandMrsBroke

It does sound like a trust deed could be a solution for you, how much do you think you could pay into a trust deed every month?

You can certainly get the ball rolling before christmas the first step would be to seek advice if you have not already?

The advisor will need a list of your income and expenses, a list of debts and details of your property, eg value and outstanding mortgage

You should also set up a new bank account with a bank who you do not owe any money.

You can contact one of our experts using the column on the left hand side for further advice