Welcome to the trust deed forum Miss Nopenny. I'm glad that you have found it to be useful.

Leaving DAS might not be entirely straightforward though shouldn't be impossible. This is quite a technical area so best to wait and see Kevin, Mark or Julie's thoughts on this.

I would have thought that the unsecured element of your Northern Rock arrangements should have been included in DAS. It certainly would have to be in a trust deed.

It does sound as though DAS might be a very long route to dealing with a significant amount of debt at the rate that you can afford to repay it currently (and in the future given the changes expected).

One of our trust deed experts should be able to explain soon whether or not trust deeds (for one or both of you) might be viable and sensible alternatives.

Hi Miss Nopenny

I am slightly surprised that you are in a 15 year DAS plan ( based on ?ú500 amount) Can I ask if you were advised of all the options?

To look at a Trust Deed or other formal solution, the DAS would need to be revoked through non payment or other reason. The process is actually fairly straight forward.

Hope this helps

Mark

How would you go about getting DAS revoked Mark?

Is it something that can be resolved directly with the administrator of the particular DPP without having to get into a non-payment or non-cooperation scenario?

Hi

Thanks for your replies at the moment the DAS agreement does not take into account our Northern Rock loan which is a significant portion of our total debt. Therefore the agreement is only over seven years. At the moment we are paying more, however the ?ú500 per month is what I would estimate us to have available in our changed circumstances. At the tme this seemed the best option for us. It would be helpful to know how to go about changing from the dpp to a trust deed if this would be a possibility? Thanks.

Hi Miss Nopenny

One other point to raise, I assume that it is a 'together' mortgage that you have with Northern Rock. If you were to proceed with Trust Deeds the unsecured proportion of your mortgage would be included within the Trust Deeds. This could potentially increase the equity in the property or have you already taken this in to the equation?

Julie

Hi Julie,

Thanks for your reply, I have already taken this into the equation. We also have a secured loan which in the current market probably puts us nto negative equity. I am afrad my head has been buried n the sand for some time!

Hi Miss Nopenny

Can you tell me how your income is split? Two separate Trust Deeds would need to be set up and I feel that, due to your level of debt, ?ú500 would be quite tight between the two. It may be that the Trust Deed option would be available to one of you, and the other would maybe have to go down the sequestration route.

Julie

Hi Julie,

I wondered if that may be the case. Our income is splt as follows:

myself: ?ú1900 per month

partner: ?ú1440 per month

All after tax. Also we recieve ?ú135 per month child benefit and will receive from April ?ú640 per month in tax credits. Childcare will be a sizable portion of our outgoings at around ?ú1300 per month for two full time places. It may be that we could get famly to help with childcare which would free up some more of our income to avoid sequestration.

Thanks.

Hi miss no penny

I'll take the easy way out and cut and paste the DAS revoke guide:

Grounds for revocation

43. Approval of a debt payment programme may be revoked by the DAS administrator on application under regulation 42 where a debtorÔÇô

(a)without good cause, does not have a money adviser;

(b)fails without reasonable cause to satisfy a condition under regulations 29 or 30;

(c)makes a statement in an application under these Regulations which the debtor knows to be untrue; or

(d)a payment to be paid under the programme becomes due, and there remains unpaid a sum, due in respect of previous payments so due, of not less than the aggregate of two such payments.
Determination of a revocation

44.ÔÇö(1) The DAS administrator in determining whether to revoke an approval of a debt payment programme shall have regard toÔÇô

(a)any statement made by, or on behalf of a debtor;

(b)the nature of any failure, or untrue statement;

(c)any factor that tends to indicate whether or not the programme will be successful; and

(2) The DAS administrator in determining whether to revoke an approval of a debt payment programme may have regard to any other factor that the administrator considers appropriate in all the circumstances.

Hopefully this helps a bit. I have dealt with a couple of cases where DAS was entered into previously and on the basis that the administrator is willing to revoke this, there's very little problems thereafter.

Mark

Hi Miss Nopenny

Based on the additional figures you have provided, including the tax credits, I believe that you may be in a position to sign a Trust Deed, dependant on further clarification of income and expenditure.

I think sequestration might be the better option for your partner, though I would recommend seeking further advice from a money adviser or insolvency professional first.

Julie

Hi all,

Thank you Mark for the information regarding the DAS arrangement. Also thank you Julie for your advice regarding a trust deed and sequestration.

At the time of arranging the dpp I think the money advisor we went to chose not to add the northern rock loan in because it is a long loan that runs with our mortgage and also adding this would have increased the length of the agreement and it may have been refused.

In hindsight it would probably have been better to explore the other options first! Clearly we have a very high level of debt that has been built up for a variety of reasons over the past ten years. From taking on credit whilst being a student and then trying to consolidate with more loans. Unfortunately it is only really ater having children that it has become apparent we can no longer sustain such a huge and growing debt and I wish that we had addressed the issue properly years ago before it became such a problem.

I think the shame of having not managed our finances properly has stopped us from doing this but I would like to thank those in this forum for making it seem less scary to deal with. Hopefully others in a similar situation will also be reassured that it is far better to talk to a professional and find a way out rather than feel alone and trapped in a seemingly dire situation!

Thanks again

Hi Miss Nopenny (like the name!)

Sorry to come onto this thread late - wasn't able to log on yesterday. Julie may well be right about sequestration being preferable for your partner, however it might be possible to avoid this, if you would rather, by extending the term of your trust deeds.

It is possible to propose trust deeds over say 4 or 5 years and this may make it a viable option for both of you. The other factor to consider is that most of the debts are joint so will get a dividend from both trust deeds - in the past we have managed to get trust deeds agreed on the basis of the sum of the payouts from both trust deeds meeting the creditors' usual minimum requirements for each trust deed.

I hope this makes sense! To illustrate, as your debts are, it seems, all joint with your partner, then even if yours pays only say 7p in the pound, many creditors will still accept the proposals if they are also getting a similar dividend from the joint party. (NB Not all creditors will do this, and it can take a bit of persuasion sometimes!)