After the excesses of Christmas many people decide to lose weight or perhaps address the other figure problem – their debts.

If debts have become difficult to manage, now might be a good time to consider setting up a Debt Management Plan which is a simple and effective way to reduce your payments to unsecured creditors to a level you can afford.

This reduction means you will be able to maintain payment towards your priority outgoings such as mortgage, rent, insurance, food and travel expenses. You make one reduced monthly payment per month to the Plan and this is divided out to all your creditors on a pro-rata basis.

The benefits for you are:

  • Creditor payments are reduced to an affordable level
  • You only make one payment per month
  • The Plan negotiates with creditors to get interest and charges frozen or reduced on arrears
  • No hassling phone calls and letters from creditors
  • It is a fair and open way of sharing payments which is widely understood by creditors
  • The plan deals with creditors on a daily basis and because of the strong relationships built up, creditors are more likely to accept their offers than if you try to arrange reduced payments yourself
  • Familiarity with creditors’ collection processes and procedures means your arrangements can be put in place quickly and efficiently
  • Your circumstances will be reviewed every 12 months to ensure that the Plan is still suitable for your financial situation

While interest and charges can be frozen or reduced, there is no guarantee this will always happen.

A Debt Management Plan is not legally binding, so creditors can take further legal action at any time during the plan, however this normally happens, in a minority of cases, where you have failed to honour your commitments.

It can take several years to complete a plan because no debt is written off, however it can be quicker to repay debts through a debt management plan than paying it off at full interest when not in a plan.

If you think you would benefit from a debt management plan, contact us at 051 318000.