Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) is changing on 6 April 2018 from being paid as a welfare benefit to being given as a secured loan. Kit Malthouse, a DWP Minister, told Radio 4's Moneybox on 17 March that he was "relatively confident we will be in a good position when it [6 April] comes." He stated that people who did not apply for the new loan by then will be able to have it … [Read more...]
Debt news and policy
Debt Camel articles on what's changing - and what ought to change - in the world of personal debt in Britain.
If you are interested in a specific area, look at: High cost credit news & policy and Insolvency news & policy.
DWP chaos? Only 10,000 have agreed to new SMI loan
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)'s Economic and Fiscal Outlook paper, published today with the Chancellor's Spring Statement, has this statement: DWP has told us that all current claimants have been contacted about the intention to convert their [Support for Mortgage Interest] award into a loan and of those that have responded, over half have indicated they are not interested while less … [Read more...]
Vanquis ROP – a million customers will get refunds
Vanquis is repaying £168,000,000 to over a million customers who had its ROP (Repayment Option Plan) on a Vanquis credit card since 2003. UPDATE In summer 2018 the first refunds were credited to people's accounts ... but they looked surprisingly low. See ROP - the refunds are too small. In February 2018, the FCA (Vanquis's regulator) decided this meant that the ROP had been missold to every … [Read more...]
MoJ consultation on default CCJs
I have responded to the Ministry of Justice's consultation on Default County Court Judgements (CCJs). This consultation was started in December 2017, because of: concern about the potential adverse impact of a County Court judgment on individuals who, unaware that a judgment had been made against them, found months or years later that their credit rating had been damaged. This article expands on … [Read more...]
2017 Insolvency Statistics – the real story
On 26 January 2018 the Insolvency Service published two sets of statistics: Individual Voluntary Arrangements: Outcome Status 1990 – 2016 Insolvency Statistics: October to December 2017 Predictably the news stories about this lead on the statistic that personal insolvency went up: The number of people who became insolvent jumped by 9.4% in 2017 - the second year running that … [Read more...]
Too broke to go bankrupt – why bankruptcy fees should be cut
This article looks at the public policy implications of the current high bankruptcy fees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: £680 (£659 in Northern Ireland) is a big obstacle to fairness at the moment, causing people stress and sometimes leading them to make poor choices between debt solutions. If you want to go bankrupt and can't afford the fees, this is not the right article for you. … [Read more...]
MoJ consulting on default CCJs… but what about defaults?
The Ministry of Justice is consulting on the current processes in which someone has a judgment made against them without their knowledge. Finding a CCJ you knew nothing about on your credit record is a very unfair situation. People may only find out about a CCJ at an old address when their mortgage or other credit application is declined, or they fail a tenancy check. Here are some of the … [Read more...]
Refunds from Payday UK/Express & the Money Shop (old article)
UPDATE On July 15, it was reported that the Money Shop is to close. This has been confirmed on July 17, when the Money Shop website was updated with details. See Money Shop to close – two million customers will be informed for details of how this will affect existing complaints. That is the best place for all discussion from now on and I am closing comments on this page. If you had … [Read more...]
2017 – a bad year for debt advisers and our clients
Very little has happened in 2017 that is good for the free debt advice sector: for the agencies, the advisors or - most importantly - our clients. This article is for front-line debt advisers across the country, because someone needs to say just how bad things are out there at the moment. I hope it will also be read by all the regulators, quasi-regulators, government departments and creditors … [Read more...]
Knightsbridge IVAs – must you agree to Creditfix’s variation?
15,000 people are being asked by Creditfix to agree to a variation that will increase the fees Creditfix gets from 15% to 23%. These are the Knightsbridge customers whose IVAs have recently been sold to Creditfix, If you have had one of these emails, do you have to agree? What are the pros and cons? IVA fees do matter Creditfix has said in the email about the proposed variation: The … [Read more...]
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