Where do you go for debt help?
Last night I was relaxing at home, and chatting with a friend on the telephone. We went through the events of the day and what each of us was up to this week. It was a great half hour on the phone, but five minutes of it was spent discussing the case of another friend and the difficulty she is facing.
Separated from her husband, but living in the house that is in his name and on which he has a mortgage with a bank, her own situation is difficult. She has several part-tim jobs and manages to pay rent to her husband to live in the property. The main problem which has surfaced this week, is that because the husband has £13,000 of borrowing on credit card debts and is strugling with these, he is beginning to get into arrears on the domestic mortgage.
The woman we were discussing has to get help quickly in order to understand her situation. She needs to know the legal situation as soon as she can and the Citizens Advice Bureau in her town will be the first place to go.
The husband needs to get an appointment with a Debt Management team and understand his own options for the debts he is struggling with, looking at how to write off as much debt as possible, and then look at what he does with the property that his wife lives in.
He might let her buy the proprty from him, retaining a portion of the equity for himnself upon sale. He might walk away from the property in a falling market, and let his wife buy it for him at a figure that simply covers his debt to the bank and leaves her with the equity to be used towards her deposit.
Whatever either of them does, the first action must be to take the right advice and to take it quickly. So many issues around debt spiralling out of control come becuse the debtor does not acknowledge the extent of the problem soon enough, and even after this acknowl;edgement has taken place they are then slow to take remedial action.
Take action and make it quick.
Nick Rampley-Sturgeon is a small business owner who has benefitted from the experiences of success, failure and financial recovery. The author of “Small Business BIG Profit” published by FT Prentice Hall, Nick writes and speaks from the heart about Risk, Reward and the Power of Personal Enterprise.
For more information about the process and an introduction to a debt management planner, send an email to nick@smallbusinessbigprofit.co.uk with your details and situation.
