Imagine for a moment though that for one day people shed all their inhibitions regarding their personal finances and began to talk freely about their financial problems. People\u2019s perceptions about the affluence or financial stability of their acquaintances would be likely to dissipate quickly. Debt is a great leveler, regardless of the size of a person\u2019s income or the extent of their assets or their status in business, politics or society. Many people earning high incomes and owning extensive assets often have debt problems to match. Many of the hitherto mighty have fallen on hard times as the recession bites deeply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It can assuage the pain to assign blame for our debt problems on someone or something else. Was it my own fault or that of my boss or employer that I lost my job? What was wrong in wanting to give my children a good standard of living and a good education? Who raised the credit limits on my credit cards? Why did the government not control, regulate or even call a halt to easy availability of credit? Was it my fault that my marriage broke down and that I had to undergo a painful breakup of my family and go through a costly divorce? Although we could have continued living in a small home but with a growing family, taking out a loan to build an extension seemed like a good idea at the time. Who would have thought that my overtime would be completely withdrawn? I didn\u2019t do anything risky that my neighbours and friends weren\u2019t already doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fear of losing the family home can cause a feeling of failure and apprehension that a spouse or even children will blame the breadwinner. Health can begin to suffer from the worry and stress of it all and loss of sleep often accompanies the anxiety. Debtors fear that if employers find out about one\u2019s financial difficulties that opportunities for advancement and promotion could be curtailed, especially for people in positions of trust and responsibility. For debtors in certain professional categories there is a real prospect of losing employment altogether. In these circumstances, relationships suffer and often deteriorate in an atmosphere of constant bickering and arguing, mainly about money matters. The prospect of separation or even divorce becomes real. Children may have to make do with a less than adequate education. A second job, even if one were available, might make no appreciable difference. For debtors who have their own business the prospect of going to the wall looms large and they can be helpless to avoid it. To ask parents for financial help is difficult enough without having to ask them for permission to move back in with them. For single debtors the prospect of marriage and children can seem like a forlorn pipedream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the UK there are many possible solutions available. The Insolvency Service in the UK has a publication on its website entitled \u2018In Debt \u2013 Dealing with Your Creditors\u2019. Reading this is an excellent first step.\u00a0 It explains in some considerable detail the various options open to people with personal debt problems. It summarises how each possible solution works and their pros and cons and tells you how to access further information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the most popular and common solutions is to enter into a debt \nmanagement plan with creditors. Because this is an informal process \nwhich is only superficially controlled by legislation, many debt \nmanagement plans can last for a very long time \u2013 ten years or even \nlonger. Creditors are not bound to accept a debt management plan and are\n under no obligation to freeze interest or penalties, although many of \nthem do so \u2013 at least for a period of time. In successful debt \nmanagement plans, creditors recover all of the monies owed to them. \nThere are few reliable statistics on the number of debt management plans\n in the UK but it is estimated that perhaps one million people are in \nsuch plans. Legislation to control the debt management plan process is \nlikely to be enacted in the next year or so. The second most common \nsolution is bankruptcy and for many insolvent debtors this may be an \nattractive and indeed the best solution, particularly for people who \nhave no assets. Discharge in one year is now the norm although income \npayments may last for three years. Unfortunately one\u2019s credit file is \nimpaired for six years from commencement of bankruptcy. The third most \npopular solution and one which may soon overtake bankruptcy in terms of \nthe numbers who embrace it, is an individual voluntary arrangement or \nIVA. This process is highly regulated with creditors often getting back a\n substantial part of the monies owed. It usually lasts five years and at\n the end the debtor is left debt free with the unpaid portion of the \ndebts being written off. Other solutions are also available which may be\n more appropriate to a particular debtor\u2019s circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the UK there are many sources of advice ranging from the free \nservices offered by e.g. CAB or the CCCS, which are sometimes described \nas charity services. There is also a large commercial sector of fee \ncharging insolvency firms which offer a full range of insolvency \nservices often starting with free initial consultations. These \nconsultations focus on a debtor\u2019s financial standing. They determine \nwhether a debtor is solvent or insolvent and usually go on to consider \noptimum solutions. In fact they are duty bound to explore and explain \nall available options for dealing with the debtor\u2019s insolvency. These \nfirms engage the services of highly qualified insolvency practitioners \n(IPs) who are tightly regulated. Of course debtors should shop around \nsince to ensure that they are getting sound professional advice. Debtors\n are advised to talk to more than one firm and not to agree to pay any \nfees for initial advice. Ultimately the debtor decides which option if \nany they want to go for. Trawling the internet is a popular way of \nsourcing insolvency firms. Some sites even provide comparative ratings \nfor firms so that you can make initial contact with only the most \nreputable firms. If you decide not to proceed with any or all such \nfirms, you can simply walk away no worse off than before. However, at \nleast you will know if you are insolvent or not and what the experts \nsuggest that you do about it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Although personal debt is everywhere, people tend to be secretive about their own debt problems because of the fear of embarrassment, shame or even stigma that they experience with their family, friends, neighbours or work colleagues<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-debt-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldebtrelief.co.uk\/debt-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldebtrelief.co.uk\/debt-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldebtrelief.co.uk\/debt-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldebtrelief.co.uk\/debt-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldebtrelief.co.uk\/debt-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldebtrelief.co.uk\/debt-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12762,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldebtrelief.co.uk\/debt-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12754\/revisions\/12762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldebtrelief.co.uk\/debt-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldebtrelief.co.uk\/debt-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldebtrelief.co.uk\/debt-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Personal](\"https:\/\/www.nationaldebtrelief.co.uk\/debt-articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/865-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSo what can be done?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n