Bank Debt Recovery Department - what do they do?

[carocaro]

Not sure where to put this, so I put it here and in Parenting, but had a letter from the bank telling us that they are going to close our accounts and transfer them to their debt recovery department. We are not sure if this means our loan, overdraft and mortgage, or just one of them.

We have been in the shit due to redundancy but have always spoken to the bank and paid what we can when we can and maintained a good dialogue with them.

We only just got the letter as we have been out all day; DH at meetings/job interviews and me at hospital appt with DS2. So now we feel paniced and stressed as we can't phone the correct bank department until Monday.

Anyone any advice or know about this sort of thing? Are we talking reposession?

Am trying not to panic and cry.

Give National Debtline a ring in the morning, they are open 9.30 to 1pm. Be persistant as they do get busy. They will go through all your financial details so have them ready for them and go through all your options and offer you free and impartial advice.

NATIONAL DEBTLINE 0808 808 4000

Hi Carocaro,

You definitely need to get some advice. Don't be tempted by any of the "little known government legislation" crap on daytime telly - as Slattern says you need free and impartial advice.

If you don't manage to get through to National Debtline you could try Consumer Credit Counselling Service on 0800 138 1111. If you would prefer face to face advice, provision very much depends on where you live. You could do a search on www.communitylegaladvice.org.uk/en/directory/directorysearch.jsp. Select "debt" from the areas of law displayed and search by your postcode. Or you could contact your #local Citizens Advice Bureau and find out if they offer money advice casework.

You are doing the right thing by staying in touch with the bank but you will need to come to a longer term agreement with them and stick to it rather than just paying "what you can when you can" on an ad hoc basis in order to prevent them taking further action.

Please don't panic at this stage about repossession - you do need to come to an agreement but if you are with a mainstream bank you would have to have broken lots of agreements or just have no realistic prospect of paying off mortgage / secured loan arrears before they sought repossession. I don't know enough about your situation to know how far down this road you are but if your debts are just being sent to the debt recovery dept, the chances are you are still a long way off such aggressive action.

When you speak to a debt adviser they will want to know about all of your income and expenditure as well as all of your debts. They will help you to prioritise your debts, maximise your income and make sure your expenditure is reasonable. You will need to make sure that you are prioritising your secured debts over unsecured ones.

If your income has been going into your overdrawn account you will need to open a new bank account - probably a basic account with no overdraft facility as your credit rating won't be up to opening a new current account. Try to open an account with a bank you're not in debt to!

Good luck! Again, you are doing all the right things by getting advice and keeping in touch with your bank.

Thanks so much, but we are already with the CCCS when this all first started 18 months ago and pay them a some of £ every month for the other creditors we had. Part of the mortage was being paid by the G'ovt on the mortgage releif scheme, but since the Tories got in they have changed the % they pay, it went down by a third overnight with no warning, so we had to try and start paying another £275 a month from nothing.

The ad hoc bank payments were when did has managed to do a bit of consulting here and there ie: scraping what he can.

Me or DH just need to get a job! He is very close, second interview next week and I have found it hard as try to reenter my profession after 5 years out up against people who have been made redundant recently and with one pre-school child the other at school it's not that easy. I have started doing a few free things just to build up a new relevant client base.

Anyway, we feel calmer today althought DH is hung over as he drank a few brandies and listened to music till the early hours; he's really feeling the pressure at present.

We are all going out for a walk in the coutryside to clear our heads.

Thanks Again.