Hi chrisd71.

You don't have to pay for DAS, though the option is available to people. Companies providing this service have varying fee structures.

It can be accessed also for free, perhaps via money advisers at a CAB or Local Authority.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to cancel the current arrangement and start again using a non-fee option.

The comment about writing off debts sounds like a description of trust deeds rather than DAS.

Hi Chris

There are 2 issues. Firstly you can choose a non fee paying DAS firm (CAB, Money Advice etc) or a fee paying one. The choice is yours. I assume you were advised of this beforehand and chose the fee paying one.

On the 2nd point, I wish it was that simple. If it was, you could sign a Trust Deed and then try to get an agreement independently with your creditors and reduce your payments to pay only the debt part. Of course in real life, the Trustee would discharge himself and you would be pursued legally for the balance plus interest by all of your creditors.

Not any different to buying a house and once the price was agreed, trying to sort out the legals yourself to avoid paying the solicitor. In effect, you lose any protection you may have previously gained.

Mark

I guess if you stopped paying to your DAS then the DPP will be revoked and you would be free to try and set up a similar arrangement through a free money advice service. However, the risk is that by not keeping to the first arrangement you risk any subsequent proposals being knocked back as you could be seen to be unreliable.

Hi there

When you went to see your money adviser at first, what information did he/she give you about DAS being available free of charge?

Also, are you actually on a DAS yet? Or are you still at the stage where you're making two payments to your money adviser?

I've been thinking about this one...

You need to find out if you're actually in DAS yet or not. Once you know that, you can start to look at what choices you have.

Any payments which are going entirely to your money adviser are not being paid to a debt payment programme in DAS. So it sounds to me as if those first two payments are made before the DAS starts.

If the DAS proposal hasn't been sent to your creditors yet, then you're not 'in DAS'.

If it has been sent to creditors, but it hasn't been approved yet, then you can withdraw the application.

From the DAS point of view, there would be nothing to stop you finding a free money adviser, and applying again. You can't apply for DAS yourself.

You might have a problem getting out of any agreement you have with the money adviser you're with just now. You'd need to check the small print.

If you're already in an approved DAS, and it gets revoked because you haven't paid it, then Kevin is right that any subsequent application might be knocked back because you're seen as unreliable.

On the other hand, if your new money adviser made it clear that you had defaulted on the previous arrangement because you wanted the full amount of your monthly payment to go to your creditors, so that they were repaid more quickly, that might be seen as a positive.

There are lots of ifs, buts and maybes in the scenario you've given us. But you definitely can't do a DAS by yourself, you need a money adviser.

Hi

Thanks to everyone that submitted. I had no idea there was a free DAS option, this was never revealed to me. I don't think the DAS has started yet as i have only paid the first £100 installment to them. Thats what sticks in my throat. When they do call, it's not to see if everything is ok, it's the manner in which, "we need your money".

I know i can't do a DAS myself, what i was refferring to was just paying teh creditors directly under as agreed payment plan. Surely they would accept that?

Thanks to all that have taken the time to submit your answers, it is very much appreciated.

It's very worrying that you weren't told there was a free DAS option. They HAVE to tell you that - by law - and give you a list of the free advice organisations in your area.

If you are not in a DAS, you can come to an arrangement with your creditors yourself. You won't have the guarantee that interest will be frozen, and your creditors can change their minds aboutit along the way. So can you!

If you go into a DAS with a free adviser, the full amount you pay each month will go to the DAS, and interest will be frozen etc.

Thanks Candlewick,

I don't recall been given the option of chargeable or free. Lesson learned

If you don't believe you were advised you could access the service free you should raise this with your provider.

Second accessing free services can be very time consuming and sometimes can take weeks or months. Also not all advice services will let you apply immediately and will want you to prove yourself in a DMP first. Depends where you are and who your local service providers are.

The service you pay for is usually for a far more quicker service (although some local services are very efficient). Also often, especially if you have payday loan companies and overdrafts even paying the service fee you are, effectively still means you are saving a lot on what you are paying in interest and charges.

where did you go to for advice in the 1st place?

Paul

carrington dean

Chrisd71,

I would suggest you contact Carrington Dean about the issue of not outlining that there are non fee chargers in the voluntary sector who can administer the Debt Arrangement Scheme and see what they have to say about it as Robin Hood advises. It would be interesting to hear how you get on with that.

Chris

I would certainly agree that chris should check his paperwork and speak to Carrington Dean about all of this. I would also hope that any Carrington Dean representatives who have read his posts will have already made sure that all their staff are following the legislation.

I'm a little bit uncomfortable about Robin Hood's statements about the free sector DAS provision. There are far more free sector advisers delivering DAS now, and they have far less admin work to do. So accessing the free sector is not necessarily as difficult as Robin Hood makes out.

I can only hope that fee charging advisers aren't paying lip service to the legislation by saying "you can get DAS free of charge", and then adding "but you can wait ages to get onto DAS, and they might not even let you on it at first, and we're more efficient...".

It sounds uncomfortably like a sales pitch to me.

Anyway, chrisd, it would be great to hear if you got things sorted out or not. Are you still with your original adviser, are you on a DAS yet, and so on?

I know Carrington Dean seems to get a bit of a kicking on these forums, but apart from dragging out my TD discharge a little bit, they were always first class with information any time I contacted them during my TD. They were also very helpful when discussing options with me before entering the trust deed, and no pressure was exercised to make me sign anything I wasn't aware of.