Letter of claim

[Artanian80]

Also is it reasonable to ask for full settlement of the debt instead of partial before agreeing to their offer?

[Artanian80]

Any ideas please?

[Artanian80]

Could anyone advise me if I should better start a new thread as it relates to a different creditor and topic now is about offer of discount and how do i treat it?

[Amethyst]

Entirely up to you, if you can afford to settle at a 40% discount and find this preferable to defending a court claim ( and potentially having a CCJ against you ) then go for it. Hoist have another couple years to go to court action before it becomes statute barred, and it has same left on your credit file ( both 6 years from date it defaulted as there was no later payment)

A Partially settled marker does zero the balance and move it to closed accounts and there is a slight improvement on the credit file over time, nothing major though, so depends what's important.

Do everything in writing xx

I settled a debt with Hoist a couple years ago in similar circumstances - also a barclaycard - and it got rid of the debt but they had some issues getting it correctly marked on the credit file which was a pain in the bum for a bit ( they ended up paying me £50 for the inconvenience so not all bad )

[Artanian80]

Thanks Amethyst,
the truth is that Hoist not getting back to me made me hope they don’t hold anything that could support a court claim so i was thinking to start clearing some of my other debts with the highest discount i could get.
I would say i can afford paying £60-£70 a month all in all.
I think doing this and waiting for some debts to become SB would make the most for my money and improve my credit score in a couple of years time.
The only thing that i am missing is if the other lenders would start chasing me up after seeing that I have agreed to a partial settlement offer, since I haven’t heard from them for a long time?

[Amethyst]

If you're coming up on 6 years you will start hearing from everyone anyway, it's one of those concerns where there is no right answer I'm afraid.

You can of course just ignore the offer and wait and see if they do come up with the additional documents they need to comply with the CCA request, and if they do then try to negotiate a lower settlement or instalment order before it gets to going to court. If not, then hope you can defend the court case on non compliance grounds. Again, there's no right answer - you have to do what feels right for you.

I got all mine settled over a few months in partial settlements because I wanted to get a mortgage. Otherwise I'd probably have waited for them to bring court action and then negotiate an out of court settlement by instalments. I knew the debts were a few years off statute barred, and would be enforceable as they were mainly opened recently ( after 2010 and mostly online agreements) I didn't want to risk any further damage to my credit file and certainly didn't want any chance of a CCJ against me, so I chose to settle... it was tough for a bit but end result/goal made it worthwhile.

[Artanian80]

Congratulations for clearing your debts that’s good to hear.
I am also thinking of getting a mortgage in the future rather than paying ridiculous amounts of money for renting, that’s why I have been thinking to settle most of my debts too.
Can I negotiate for a full settlement of the debts marked in my credit report instead of partial settlement and what’s the best approach to get your offer accepted. Any relevant letters contacting creditors to ask for a discount in here?

[Amethyst]

The credit file will reflect the truth - so if you pay in full it would be marked as paid in full - if you pay 40/70% of a debt it would be marked as partially settled. They won't generally negotiate to mark as paid in full if you pay a reduced settlement - so far as I can tell there is a very minimal difference in the effect of settling previously defaulted debts in full or partial settlement.

Just had a look at my CreditKarma file and the part settled ones are marked as Satisfied, and the fully paid ones are marked as Settled. Each CRA does it differently and different lenders take things into account differently too - never an exact science.

Be nice when these fall off completely of course - last one due to be 6 years from default Jan 2022 - I didn't want to wait that long to buy my house so I did what was best for me After being turned down for a mortgage a couple years previously Sorry not a huge help - there's really no right answer for you - just what you feel is best xxx ( my last one I settled May 2018 and got my mortgage Jan 2019 )



Offer wise - work out pro rata what you can afford for each debt. There's info and templates on National Debtline - I dealt with them as they came up and spread it out over a couple years as I could manage a settlement but some people use things like a PPI refund or an inheritance to settle everything in one go ....
https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/...sumoffers.aspx

[MiguelMas]

How does settling everything in one go change things by the way, Amethyst?

[Artanian80]

I have received an 60% discount offer asking me to call to discuss about it by end of the month and at the same letter it is mentioned that the payment can be done until 20 of December, am i right to think they wouldn’t accept monthly payments for the discounted sum ?Is there a template letter to send for negotiating accepting monthly payments?Also should i send a prove it letter along with it or would that make them withdraw the offer and myself to miss the deadline?

[Artanian80]

Has anyone got experience how to negotiate about discount offer by monthly payment without resetting the 6 years time?Should i write to them i am not accepting the debt but i would accept your offer if i could pay monthly?Honestly I cannot afford paying a lump sum as i have a big number of creditors, some of them have already offered me a discount by monthly payments but the specific letter asks me to pay by end of next month to make use of the discount.