Dmp or alternative

[rumple123]

I recently contacted StepChange as I was struggling with £21k unsecured debt - 5 credit cards £14k and £7k loan, also have 2.5k overdraft and £9k student loans. They offered me a plan which would be 4 years, the amount due would be reduced by the creditors but my house may be at risk, my name would be published online as insolvent. They also offered a dmp, I would pay all of the money back (which I don't mind as it's my debt but about 40% of that is interest and missed payment charges and poor money management costs) but the DMP would take 11 years to clear debt and my name wouldn't be published and my house wouldn't be at risk. I would love the figure to be reduced and go for the 4 yr plan but obviously I don't want my name online (you apparently need to look for it but even still I haven't told my family and would feel ashamed if my name was online), I was told insolvency RARELY leads to you losing house - but how to quantify the risk? The 11 year plan sounds more flexible - creditors are still to accept - this was just the figure that StepChange advisor gave me after doing my affordability.

As far as I could read the cons of dmp over iva is that creditors could still chase you however I am in Scotland so we don't have bailiffs etc as there's different protocols. As fear of bailiffs out of the picture I don't know what I should pick. 4 years and not pay off all my debts, or 11 years and pay back every single penny of interest, charges etc and of course the money I spent. I am 32 and want to start a family soon, 11 years seems so long. I many receive inheritance before then so as the dmp is flexible I may have a lump sum, if so can I pay off balance and withdraw from 11 year plan?

If you go down the dmp route you can self manage. I'm not sure of Scottish law but I was able to offer full and final settlements as the debt was sold on. So I only had to pay a percentage of the debt not the whole amount (I would have paid the full amount, but the companies buy the debt cheap, so can afford to accept offers as they still make money)

If you own a house and don't intend to move i would be more inclined to go for dmp.

DH is a year down the line (secret debt 42k when I found out) with a DMP it's working quite well for us it will take 12 years to pay (11 to go) we're in a very complicated set up as DS has health problems so we've had to move to be closer to family as DH was potentially looking at loosing his job due to having to watch our dds while I was in hospital with DS. We are still able to get a mortgage although we will pay alot more in interest. DMPs are flexible with payments as we've moved to a cheaper area we are hoping when our house sells we will be able to pay off some extra this year and get the time really knocked down.