My DRN (Debt Relief Notice).

G

Guinea pig

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I seem to be the only person going through this process at the moment so I would like to share my experience.

I have been through the MABS initial contact and I have passed this screening.

I have received the pack and I am in the process of filling out the pack and getting the required documentation together.

I have 3 utilities and 5 creditors so I have to write to each one asking for:

1. Total amount due.
2. Monthly repayment amount.
3. Confirmation of security for this loan, if any.
4. Confirmation of whether or not this loan has been restructured.
5. Confirmation of whether or not there is payment protection insurance associated with this account.
6. Copy original loan agreement.
7. Current interest rate.

For the utilities, I just had to ask for the amount owed, arrears and average usage per month (!?).

I have only received a reply from 1 utility by email. Tomorrow I have to ring each one and chase the correspondence.

Seeing as I was not making full payments to my creditors this will be hell as I do not want to enter into a telephone conversation with them concerning the DRN. Up till now I have only dealt with them by mail / e-mail.

I have an provisional appointment for the 22nd of OCT, this will only be confirmed if I have all the documentation in, doesn't look as if I will so I can't see this appointment materialising.

MABS have advised than I do not volunteer the fact I am seeking a DNR to my creditors but surely they can see when these pre-formatted letters arrive it points to the fact the customer is seeking DRN?
 
Hi Guinea Pig

Very interesting. It is probably worth going through the problems of calling your creditors if it results in getting them written off through a DRN.

Would you mind providing a bit of background - amount owed, income, reason for being unable to pay your debts?
 
Sure, my backround is:

We have a household income of €1148 part time employment and €814 Social welfare per month. Total: 1962

Not including the child benefit of €260 per month.


two adult, two kids and 1 car family

Do you need a car for work or do you use public transport?

yes, shift work.

Partner buys a monthly bus ticket for €95.

Number of children 0- 2 years old: 2

Monthly childcare costs: 350

Monthly spend on special circumstances: e.g. exceptional healthcare costs €15




renters.



Credit Union
Amount of shares : 200
(previously all my savings were transferred to pay off a lump of the loan).
Amount of loan outstanding €8,000
Interest 9.4%
Monthly repayment €220
Term left : 4.75 years

Restructured last year again



Credit cards
Owed €9500
All interest stopped, all changed into loans.
repayments €280 p/m

rent €510 per month

Letter from the CU this morning with all information requested.
 
You mention household income,but is it you ,your husband,or both of you applying for the DRN?Also,in whose name is each debt?
 
This is the bit I cant under stand, I see here there is confusion over it too.

All the debt is in my name only.

But for the DRN we are assessed as the
2 adults and 2 kids and 1 car table.

Make no sense to me, but we are still under the threshold.

If a couple apply and debts are in both names do they both have a DRN against their name? I presume so.
 
The primary issue is your debts and they are under €20,000. So you meet that criterion.

They should look at your income on its own and your expenditure on its own to see if you meet that criterion, and you probably do.

But if they look at your joint income and joint expenditure, you will meet that criterion as well, so you are ok.

Brendan
 
If a previously self employed husband,who now has no income of his own,and cc debts of €18k,applied for a DRN,could it be refused if his wife's income is too high?
 
This is very interesting Guinea Pig and thank you for sharing your experiences with us.

Very odd that Mabs told you not to tell the utilities about the fact you are applying for a DRN. Why would that be I wonder. Because Mabs suspects that the utility companies will not play ball.

To solve the issue of ulilities. Can you not today ring in your meter reading, they will send you a bill, then you have your amount owing, you will also have your arrears. To calculate the monthly amount, take 12 months of bills add them up and divide by 12. Surely this is acceptable to Mabs, maybe you should ask them.

I'm curious about the utilities. I presume the current bill plus arrears gets written off in the DRN, but what happens going forward, will the utility company continue to supply you, how did Mabs explain this?

Any chance you could scan the pre formated letter that goes to the utility companies, and any other ones you might have. It would be good to see what they are like.

I presume utilites must be gas, esb and ? Which one was prompt in reply?

In relation to the credit cards, did they write off the previous interest, how did you get them to convert it into a zero interest loan, was it because you defaulted. Have you been paying them anything? I'm just wondering why they didn't just write off the full debt.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
The primary issue is your debts and they are under €20,000. So you meet that criterion.

They should look at your income on its own and your expenditure on its own to see if you meet that criterion, and you probably do.

But if they look at your joint income and joint expenditure, you will meet that criterion as well, so you are ok.

Brendan
Click to expand...


As the RLEs are set our per household they look at the RLES appropriate for your household and apportion them to each individual based on the individuals share of the income.
 
Very odd that Mabs told you not to tell the utilities about the fact you are applying for a DRN. Why would that be I wonder. Because Mabs suspects that the utility companies will not play ball.


I would say MABS said not to volunteer the information, I have all bills and I asked if that would just do, they said included them as well as the letter from each one.
I think this is to make sure I didn't just run up a massive bill with the last 6 months. Thankfully it was Summer, this may happen if it was winter.

To solve the issue of utilities. Can you not today ring in your meter reading, they will send you a bill, then you have your amount owing, you will also have your arrears. To calculate the monthly amount, take 12 months of bills add them up and divide by 12. Surely this is acceptable to Mabs, maybe you should ask them.

I'm curious about the utilities. I presume the current bill plus arrears gets written off in the DRN, but what happens going forward, will the utility company continue to supply you, how did Mabs explain this?

I should have no arrears by the time the DNR is passed which is looking very far away from now.

Any chance you could scan the pre formatted letter that goes to the utility companies, and any other ones you might have. It would be good to see what they are like.

Sure, I can link to them



I presume utilites must be gas, esb and ? Which one was prompt in reply?

UPC was my third, they replied by email.

In relation to the credit cards, did they write off the previous interest, how did you get them to convert it into a zero interest loan, was it because you defaulted. Have you been paying them anything? I'm just wondering why they didn't just write off the full debt.

I have been working with all creditors since late 2010 when I had health issues. All CC have been restructured and yes I did miss payments as I had 12 weeks with any payment from anywhere in 2010. I didnt ask for them to write off the debt and I have always paid...something, sometimes just 10% of the payment.


Quick reply to this message Multi-Quote This Message Reply With Quote
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Oops cant post links yet to the docs, will edit when I can.


By the way I am not married and all my debts are in my name.


EDIT:

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Another two creditors replied today with a letter stating the information requested.

One included the agreement from 2006.
Surprisingly a financial review attached to the agreement says I had a mortgage of 125,000 on a property worth €155,000.

I have never had a mortgage or a property.

A condition of the DRN is that no credit was gotten by fraud, this attachment to the agreement could be seen at some attempt to obtain credit by false means.

I have now written to the bank to tell them the details are incorrect.


The other creditor's letter stated the incorrect amount per month on the most recent payment plan and the wrong date this plan came into effect. Only for I have a spread sheet detailing every move I've had with each bank, I would have had to accept the banks version of everything.
 
Guinea pig said:
Surprisingly a financial review attached to the agreement says I had a mortgage of 125,000 on a property worth €155,000.

I have never had a mortgage or a property.

I have now written to the bank to tell them the details are incorrect.


The other creditor's letter stated the incorrect amount per month on the most recent payment plan and the wrong date this plan came into effect. ing.
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So two of your creditors have given you at least 3 incorrect information. That's very shoddy work.

In relation to the credit cards the fact you made any kind of payment meant they didn't write off the debt. They won't do that where they think there is any chance of a payment. Have you ceased all payments to everybody?

What happens to ulitilites if you get a debt write off? Can you just start again with the electric and the gas?
 
I should have my ESB arrears cleared by Christmas if I keep to the current payments.

I am currently paying about 24% of the required payment to each creditor, whether they have agreed to the payment or not. this money comes mostly from the children's allowance.

the children's allowance is disregarded for the DRN.
 
As it stands I now have had a reply from 3 of the 5 creditors and all utilities.
I have started filing out the statement of affairs and it is different to the financial statement that MABS usually use.

So far I have nearly 60 photocopied sheets, there is so much paperwork needed. If photocopying wasn't so cheap in the library I would have no hope of getting all this together.

Initially the date for the meeting was this week but as I don't have the required documentation this will have to wait.

I will re-write to the 2 creditors that didnt reply and ask for an immediate response.

I am still not sure this is really worth the hassel, I feel like I would just like each creditor bring me to court so they could see I have nothing to pay them.
 
All creditors have no made contact and provided as much information as they can, I can finally post off the statement of affairs.

Since I sent the letters asking for the DRN information I have been in receiving numerous letters asking for financial statements and statutory letters under the consumer credit act.


MABS don't have a direct line to I have to call and leave a message if I need to speak to someone about a letter I have received.

Once they receive the statement and I have the initial face to face meeting, MABS will take over dealing with the creditors, but in the mean time creditors are getting their piece said.

Only one bank hasn't supplied the correct information, the debt has been passed to another company and they come up with a different amount owed every few weeks. They cannot supply the information that MABS want because I i didnt have a credit agreement with them, they were passed my account from another bank.

I disagree with the DRN register online, but I admit I keep checking it to see if anyone else managed to complete this process.
 
I disagree with the DRN register online, but I admit I keep checking it to see if anyone else managed to complete this process...
How do you check the register if you don't know their name?
 
Guinea pig said:
I have been in receiving numerous letters asking for financial statements and statutory letters under the consumer credit act.

Once they receive the statement and I have the initial face to face meeting, MABS will take over dealing with the creditors,

Only one bank hasn't supplied the correct information, the debt has been passed to another company and they come up with a different amount owed every few weeks. They cannot supply the information that MABS want because I i didnt have a credit agreement with them, they were passed my account from another bank.
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Thanks for the update and it does seem you are getting somewhere at last. If I understand you correctly, the fact that you're in a DRN means the banks etc have gone into overdrive sending you letters? Are they nasty? Or are they just trying to make sure they have all their i's dotted etc.

That's a pity that MABS doesn't allow you a dedicated person to help you through the process, more makey jobey, with a staff member having to pass your phone call on, instead of just being efficient. Once Mabs take over, does that mean your creditors have to stop all correspondance with you? Can you tell us mroe about the DRN onlin register, are you named on it?

In relation to the one account where the debt has passed on and they are giving you a different figures every week, could you name them please. Just want to know who is so inefficient.
 
I search for common Irish names! I know this is sad and a waste of time, but if you search for any info on DRNs nothing comes up.

If I understand you correctly, the fact that you're in a DRN means the banks etc have gone into overdrive sending you letters?

I'm not technically in a DRN at all, but the since I sent the preformatted letters to the creditors, the letters have stepped up, mostly asking for new financial statements etc. A good few 'consumer credit act type' letters from Avant card.

Once Mabs take over, does that mean your creditors have to stop all correspondence with you? Yes I have to sign a thing to give them the power to deal with all creditors.

Can you tell us mroe about the DRN onlin register, are you named on it? No, I'm not. If my application is approved by the court then I will be on it, but you would need my name to search for me. Its here:

[broken link removed]

In relation to the one account where the debt has passed on and they are giving you a different figures every week, could you name them please. Just want to know who is so inefficient.

Halifax and Bluestone. There last 9 payments I made to Halifax seems to be missing but Bluestone have a much lower balance owed on file for me. Lower than even if they had accounted for the 9 payments for the can't find.

Also when Bluestone called me, I didn't confirm any details about myself but they just started telling me every detail about the account they had linked to my mobile number.
 
Guinea pig said:
Halifax and Bluestone. There last 9 payments I made to Halifax seems to be missing but Bluestone have a much lower balance owed on file for me. Lower than even if they had accounted for the 9 payments for the can't find.

Also when Bluestone called me, I didn't confirm any details about myself but they just started telling me every detail about the account they had linked to my mobile number.
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So you owe Halifax some money, you were unable to repay them and they passed it on to a debt collection agency called Bluestone. But either Halifax has supplied Bluestone with incorrect information or Bluestone has messed up. Can you prove how much you've paid, I suppose it doesn't really matter now and Mabs will sort it out. The only way I would think it was important is if your debt is being written off that no amount is missed.

Something you should make Mabs aware of I assume.

Do you have to pay any fees/costs?

Not sure why you're looking at the register, do you find people on it? Are there many?

Not sure what benefit it is of the creditors to be looking for new financial statements, seems a pointless exercise, as you're not going to be paying them anything from now on. Just more pen pushing exercises instead of dealing properly with ordinary stressed people.
 
I don't have to pay any fees that I am aware of.

ask payments are by bank transfer so I have a record.
 
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