Difficulty Making Repayments

Difficulty Making Repayments 

Your loan will be in arrears if you miss one agreed repayment and in default if you miss 3 or more repayments. Allowing your loan to get into arrears or default may limit your future borrowing. The Credit Union will contact you if this happens setting out the consequences of not making the payments you have agreed. All arrears and defaults are reported to our Credit Agency.

The golden rule if you are having difficulty in meeting your repayments is to contact us – if we do not know we cannot help. As a community lender we do try hard to be flexible to help our individual members and can often agree an alternative repayment schedule if your circumstances change. However we have a duty and legal right to recover monies borrowed as these are the savings deposited by our other members.

Where members are uncooperative or do not contact us we will take enforcement measures to recover funds owed including  transfer of savings; recovery of the loan by a debt recovery agency or bailiffs; or a county court judgement to repay the loan.

For more information and indepndent advice or If you believe you require more specific debt advice we would recommend the following agencies. All are free and give impartial advice. 

Stepchange – www.stepchange.org or 0800 138 1111

Money Advice Service – www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk or 0300 500 5000

Citizens Advice - www.citizensadvice.org.uk

Christians against Poverty www.capuk.org 0800 328 0006

National Debtline www.nationaldebtline.co.uk or 0808 808 4000

If you require advice about what benefits you are entitled to or grants available in your local area, Turn2us provide a very useful service online or by phone - their contact details are:

turn2us.org.uk or 0808 802 2000

The following link is very useful for up to date details on benefit entitlements and is written in plain English

http://householdquotes.co.uk/uk-benefits-guide/

Loan sharking and the law

A loan shark is someone who lends money illegally without holding authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority.

Loan sharks rarely, if ever, give any paperwork and if payments are missed they often use intimidation and violence to get money.

• Have you been offered a cash loan?
• Have you been threatened when you couldn't pay?
• Has your bank card been taken from you as a security?
• Does what you owe keep growing even though you are making payments?

If you can answer 'yes' to any of the above then it is likely you may have been bitten by a loan shark. If you have borrowed money from a loan shark you have not committed a crime but they have and they could go to prison. Because it is illegal there is no legal obligation to repay them.

If you, or anyone you know, has become the victim of a loan shark, then there is help at hand. The national Illegal Money Lending Team is there to help and support you with advice and assistance if you or someone you know has borrowed money from a loan shark. You should contact the police if you are in immediate danger.

Contact them IN CONFIDENCE on:

Tel: 0300 555 2222

Email: reportaloanshark@stoploansharks.gov.uk.

Text: reportaloanshark@stoploansharks.gov.uk