There’s a lot of options for coping with issues of private debt however in the United Kingdom or particularly in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the top seven alternatives probably make up over 98% of solutions. The legislation in Scotland is to some degree different to the rest of the United Kingdom therefore it is omitted from consideration for the purposes of this article.
In no particular order, the seven options might be summarized as follows:
Firstly, you can aim to arrive at a negotiated deal between you and your lenders to repay some or all of your liabilities. This is sometimes called a self managed debt management plan where you conduct all the negotiations with your lenders without the assistance of a third party.
Secondly, you may try to reorganize or pay off your debts by getting a loan from a lender. This is often referred to as debt consolidation where you clear all or nearly all of your debts from the money borrowed in a single new loan. Now you normally have just one debt to service.
Thirdly, you can engage the services of a debt management company to negotiate with your lenders as your representative and to organize your payments to them. This is usually referred to as a Debt Management Plan or a DMP.
Fourthly, if your liabilities amount to no more than 5,000 and are owed to at the very least two creditors and providing you have a court judgment entered against you by one of those creditors that you cannot pay in full, you could request the court to create County Court Administration Order, called a CCAO. While under this kind of order you make weekly, monthly or quarterly payments to the court, which shares the money amongst your lenders in proportion to the sums you borrowed from them.
Fifthly, providing you are insolvent and currently have regular income or assets or both of those, you could engage the expertise of an insolvency practitioner to put together, negotiate and administer an arrangement for you to voluntarily repay your creditors some or in some cases all of the funds you owe them. This kind of agreement is referred to as an Individual Voluntary Arrangement or an IVA.
Sixthly, assuming you have a minimal surplus income i.e. no more than 50 of disposable money per month, assets of no more than 300 and debts not in excess of 15,000 in total, you could, without going to court, on payment of a fee of 90, seek for a Debt Relief Order (DRO) to be made and if granted, your liabilities will be cleared in twelve months, without having to make any more payments.
Finally, if none of the six solutions above are suitable for your circumstances, then the seventh option in this shortlist may appeal to you. This of course is bankruptcy, which can be initiated by you or indeed by one of your creditors to whom you owe at least 750. Your assets are sold and you may also have to make payments from your surplus income for up to three years, to help clear your debts.
Every one of these remedies has some merit but they differ a great deal from each other. The best option in your case depends on your personal preference, your current and future circumstances and those of your family. The total amount you owe, your earnings and your assets will likewise have a important bearing on which options will be accessible to you. To enable you to come to a decision, you really should look up the website of The Insolvency Service to find a booklet called ‘In Debt - Dealing with your Creditors’. This provides a comprehensive summary of the advantages and disadvantages of each solution and it compares and contrasts the various choices against each other. It also gives contact details for various government funded advice agencies where you may get free advice.