Full and final settlement offers - need help please!

[bookwormbeagle]

Hi,

I'm hoping that somebody may be able to offer some advice on my situation.

Since going on maternity leave in 2009 and going back to work part time my income reduced considerably, to the point that I went on a DMP with stepchange and stuck to it religiously until my second mat leave in November 2013, by which time I got into a pickle again. Am now back at work but the debt totals approx. £12,500 and after completing my income and expenditure the amount available for debt repayments is miniscule.

I want to clear this debt asap as the stress hanging over me is making it hard to focus on anything else. I've had a sum of money become available from a family member to try and sort it out, £3000, and I want to make settlement offers to the creditors.

If I follow the offer guidelines from National Debtline the percentage works out to about 24% which I fear they'll be unlikely to accept. Should I just focus on clearing a few of the debts with offers of 50-60%? Has anybody had experience in clearing debts with F&F offers, and would you mind sharing what sort of figure the creditor was happy to accept?

Thanks so much in advance, any help appreciated.

Anybody?

I would advise you to go to a citizens advice bureau as this is the sort of thing they are good at. But, the key thing to negotiating with creditors is to get a financial statement sorted showing income and expenditure so they can see what you don't have. I used to work at a legal aid solicitors and the debt adviser would always compile one of these. Afraid can't help further!

That's fine, thanks for your advice. Just need to get an aptmt now - our local CAB office is woefully understaffed/overused.