Dealing with your lenders
If you cannot meet your minimum monthly payments, it's vital that you contact your lenders. They should be sympathetic to your problem, providing you make them aware of your situation and demonstrate that you're committed to making every effort to repay what you owe.
Request expert debt advice
Writing a letter to your lenders
Your first letter should advise your lenders of your situation and ask for up-to-date information on your current position, including how much you owe, your arrears and any charges you have incurred. Ask them to suspend taking any action and stop any interest and charges whilst you compile your Budget Plan and your Repayment Proposal, explaining that you will be submitting these in the next letter as soon as you receive all the relevant information.
When writing to them you should keep a copy of everything you send. You should also ask them to put everything in writing, just in case you need to refer back to any correspondence. Your lender should be happy to provide copies of any information you need. If you do run into difficulties, you have the legal right as a 'data subject' to make a request to their data controller, for copies of any personal information they are processing that relates to you. Your lender is entitled to charge a fee of up to £10 for providing this information.
You can download sample letters from our budget planner & letter templates section to help you.
Note: Lenders typically accept an arrangement for a short period (such as six months) after which they will want to review your circumstances.
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